Merry Christmas from the Millers (2014)

Sporting a holiday outfit for her last day of school before break

Smiling with daddy before school

Ready to celebrate Christmas

Enjoying her first Christmas Eve with the Miller clan

Getting tired, but a good sport for more pictures...

And trying to help give out gifts

Christmas festivities are exhausting

Refreshed on Christmas morning

Ready to open presents with the Clementes on Christmas Day

Merry Christmas from our family to yours

And best wishes for 2015!

The 10 Month Update

These updates sure do creep up on me so quickly! I wouldn't mind if time would slow down a bit.  This past weekend, on December 7th, our little girl turned 10 months. The age is symbolic in our world because it means she is ready to be moved up into the older infant classroom at her school. Since the school is closed two weeks at the holidays, we decided to wait until after the new year to switch her over full time. During this month, she'll spend a few hours a few days a week with the older kids to help with the transition. I don't expect it will be a challenge since Rose seems to prefer the older kids, and two of her friends just moved into the older class last month.

Rose is happy to be 10 months!

Sporting a 12 month outfit

Here's a summary of Rose at 10 Months:

The big news this month is that Rose got her ears pierced.  In the Portuguese culture, it's common for little girls to have their ears pierced within a few months.  I was torn because I wanted her ears pierced, but couldn't stomach the thought of actually having it done.  Our Brazilian neighbor recommended her dermatologist who pierced her daughter's ears and we were told they would only do it until a child's 1st birthday or we'd have to wait until she was older (like 6-7 years).  We decided to have it done the week before Thanksgiving. Rose screamed when the "gun" punctured the ear, but was fine within 30 seconds of it being done. She really is a tough girl.  Maybe people will stop mistaking Rose for a boy now that she has earrings.  That hair just isn't growing fast enough!

Our mobile "cruiser" is close to walking. She walks all over the place with some assistance. Sometimes she'll walk with the help of our hands, but more often she will alternate between crawling and standing holding a stationary item. With us, she loves alternating between walking slow and very fast.  When she's playing with things on the table, she often uses both hands, leaving her standing unassisted for a short period of time. One of these days she is going to forget to hold onto something and just start walking.  As you can see from the videos, she's a very busy girl at 10 months!

Rose still loves saying goodbye to everyone with her full arm wave, or her Ciao, Bella wave.

She and daddy are saying Ciao Bella to mommy

After her slight head cold while traveling for Thanksgiving, Rose caught another bug at school. This time, the bug infected the whole house! We were all pretty miserable last week with a stomach bug that started with Rose, passed to me, and even managed to get Colin. Thankfully we weren't sick at the same time. Rose fought the bug quickly with a couple episodes of vomiting in the early morning hours on Tuesday.  I didn't get sick until Thursday afternoon/evening, and Colin got sick on Friday afternoon/evening. Colin usually has a stomach of steel, so for him to get sick, it must have been a bad one.  Rose got over the bug like a champ and really didn't act sick.  Her symptoms were a few episodes of vomiting and diarrhea.  I on the other hand, seriously debated going to urgent care after being sick for 4 hours!  Colin said he's probably only had one stomach bug in his life that was worse than this one.  I should be grateful that Rose doesn't complain much and that she recovers from illness quickly, but I am ready for her to stop catching stuff at school! 

Rose still loves to say yell "ma-ma-ma", "ba-ba-ba" and the occasional "da-da."  She also learned how to make fun sounds with the teachers at school.

Rose still eats what we eat and loves her grapes and meat. Over Thanksgiving break we ate a fair amount of turkey and had meatballs a few times. Rose had no complaints with those menu items. She's also good at eating her vegetables. Rose hasn't tried desserts or nuts yet.  We also haven't done fish in awhile. I'm excited to report that we've made it another month without formula.  I think we are now in the clear since Rose eats so well. I did notice a drop in supply when I had the stomach bug, but Rose seems like she gets enough even when she gets less.

Rose seems to be having longer stretches of sleep at night, and since we got back from Thanksgiving, she's done a great job soothing herself to sleep.  We've gotten into a better routine of bed by 7:30p, and she's been waking up on her own (fairly happy) around 7am. For the most part, she still wakes up once a night to nurse (around 12-1a), but we sometimes experience a full night's sleep.  I continue to hope that sleeping through the night becomes a regular occurrence in our house again.  While Rose still takes a power nap of 30 minutes once or twice a day, she's had more frequent episodes of sleeping 1-2 hours during her nap at home and at school.  

We continue to use cloth diapers at all times except overnight, and it seems like Rose is leaking less. Last month I was worried about stretched elastics, but I think the problem was lack of absorbency. There is a whole science to cloth diapering that I can get into (maybe another post), but you have to "strip" your diapers once in awhile. The stripping removes buildup from chemicals released in urine (ammonia) and from buildup that might occur in detergent. With traveling and using washing machines at our family's houses, I wasn't able to wash the diapers in my usual way. Poor Rose ended up with ammonia burn (a bad diaper rash) from the drive home that cleared as soon as I stripped the diapers, let her bottom air out, and used some shea butter diaper cream. I just stripped the diapers by washing the diapers through a few extra cycles (one of which had bleach).  Next time we head north, I might try to bring some detergent that is to be used with hard water to see if that cleans the diapers better.

Now on to some of this month's pictures...

Pecan picking at Oak View County Park in Raleigh

Our ticklish girl

Intently observing mommy put together the Christmas tree

Enjoying the colors and textures of the Christmas tree

Dressed in an outfit from Portugal, Rose is ready for a
Portuguese dinner with the Portuguese Association of North Carolina

Finding the right foods to bring to the dinner

Satisfied with so much delicious Portuguese food
and enjoying being the center of attention!

Rose's 9 Month Pictures

Before I get to Rose's 10 month update, I need to share these beautiful images taken by the talented Galizes Photos. Thank you Ana Teresa for capturing Rose's "busy-ness" at 9 months!

A Pleasant Travel Surprise

As wonderful as visiting family is for the holidays, traveling during these times is difficult and stressful. Flights are expensive and so is boarding Darwin, so we frequently find ourselves making the drive from North Carolina to the Albany, NY and Rhode Island circuit.  Now that we have Rose, it adds another challenge.

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to start our trip north after work on Friday. We've done the drive straight before, and have said we would never do it again!  I found a reasonable rate at a Westin hotel off I-95 in Delaware, which split the drive almost in half. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the hotel was and it was even better that they allowed dogs for free.  It's really difficult to travel with a dog on a budget. We've stayed at a Red Roof Inn before - which I won't do again - and I find myself tirelessly looking for nice, pet-friendly hotels, that are just off the highway. I just can't justify spending a lot of money on a room that we will only be in for 7-9 hours - to sleep.  The hotel stay in Delaware was pleasant, but we arrived after midnight and Rose had been sleeping in the car all evening, so she did not want to go to bed. We opted to sleep in Saturday morning and get a late checkout so we could swim in the pool for a bit.

Heading north is a little easier than coming south.  Since we can leave after work on the way up, the DC traffic isn't usually too bad. We are almost guaranteed to hit traffic on the way south.  In an effort to beat the insanely horrible south-of-DC traffic, we opted for another Westin Hotel just outside of DC in Tysons Corner.  I found a AAA rate of $59 for the hotel which is pet friendly (and free for pets), had good reviews, was right off the highway, and had an easy cancellation policy.  I knew the pool was going to be out-of-service for repairs, but we didn't plan on using the pool anyway.  We spent the whole day Saturday getting from Rhode Island to DC.  We made great time to New Haven and then stopped to visit with friends for a few hours. Unfortunately, the afternoon travel was not as smooth as the morning and we hit bad traffic out of New Haven, CT and again in northern Maryland.  Instead of arriving at the hotel at my planned 7pm, we didn't get there until closer to 10pm.  I was tired, having left RI at 9:30am, and was grateful that the front desk staff was extremely friendly and quick with the check-in process. Because of Rose's poor sleeping on the trip up, and Darwin's occasion barking at sounds in the hallway, I asked if we could be away from high traffic areas and away from other guests (or they would be mad at a crying baby!).  I was told we were set up in a suite already and that it was somewhat close to the elevator, but gave us a lot of room. The closest guests were 4 rooms away, so I agreed to the suite.  I was not prepared for the room we received!

It had a living area with a dining room table, pull-out couch, treadmill and other exercise equipment - AND - had a separate bedroom/bathroom with another TV, office work station, and lounge area!  I've never been placed in such a large room, especially for $60!  It's too bad we arrived at 10p and had to depart early to beat the DC traffic.  I'm not sure how I got the room, but I was glad we did. It made putting Rose to bed easier (she cries it out a little and settles down to sleep), even if she didn't stay asleep long. And it gave Darwin his own sleeping quarters - which I'm sure he loved! They even supplied us with a doggie bed - which Darwin didn't use because he thinks he's human and wants to be on the couch.

The few winks of sleep we did get were enough to get us through the drive from DC to NC - which only took just over 4 hours with our 8am departure. We were tired, but not nearly as bad as the time we tried driving from NYC straight through the night when Rose was 3 months old.

Every time we do the drive, we say we are going to fly next time. I guess we'll have to wait and see what we do when next time comes.

The living area

The living area with its exercise equipment

The bedroom and the crib the hotel provided

A second look at the bedroom

Grateful this Thanksgiving and Cutest Baby Contest

This year, I'm counting my many blessings. I'm grateful for my life partner who has been my best friend and companion for almost 14 years. I'm grateful for a healthy and happy daughter and the endless joy she brings to my life.  I'm grateful for our hard-working, loving, and supportive families who serve as wonderful role models.  I'm grateful that Colin and I are able to work in professional jobs that allow us to live comfortably. I'm grateful for a house that we are making our own. I'm grateful for the nourishing food we are able to purchase and consume from local and organic farmers (both directly and indirectly).

During this Thanksgiving, festivities which lasted all week, I'm grateful we were able to visit our families.  Although Rose was suffering from a head cold/congestion, she was still the life of the party.

Sporting her new outfit from Portugal

Posing with mommy and daddy

Playing with Tupperware

Climbing on mommy and smiling for the camera 

One of her many laps around the house

She loves her meat!

Rose is not thrilled about taking a break from eating for a picture

After dinner fun with daddy

Not feeling great, but managing a smile for the camera

Clemente Family photo

Selfie with Uncle Mark before going out in the cold

Hoping a bath clears away the cold 

 May you all be as fortunate as I am this Thanksgiving!

Also - there are only two days left to vote in the WRAL Cutest Baby Contest. Rose has the 6th most votes!  You can vote daily these last two days using the following link:

Rose is 9 Months

On November 7th, Rose turned 9 Months. This continues to be a fun age - for the most part.  Today's weight at her wellness visit was 18lbs, 4oz (37% percentile) and 27inches (27% percentile). She doesn't seem short or slim to me - we've been transitioning out of the 9 month clothes and into some 12 month outfits. And, considering we have been all over the board with weights and heights at the doctor's office, I'm gonna say their systems aren't calibrated!  :)

9 Months

Here's a summary of Rose at 9 Months:

Our mobile crawler is now a "cruiser" - meaning she stands on things and moves from place-to-place holding on.  She can get all the way around the coffee table on her feet and she is pretty bold, using just one hand fairly often.  She is frequently on the move, whether it be crawling, cruising, moving from sitting to standing and back to sitting, etc.  We've been practicing walking while holding her hands - but she prefers to cruise on her own. I think she's going to be little Miss Independent.

We've started barricading spaces in the house - especially the stairs. Check out the video of Rose climbing the entire staircase from the first level to the second. She was motivated to reach the bag of candy. Plastic just sounds like so much fun in your hands!

Rose seems to enjoy school, as you may have been able to tell from the last picture post of her activities. Some days she would rather stay with mommy and other days she just wants to be put down to play with her friends. Her best friend at school is William, who is just one month older than Rose. At 10 months she moves into the 10month-18month class. William and another 10-month-old just moved up to the next class, so Rose is now the oldest in her class.  I frequently remind her to be gentle with the younger babies who are not yet crawling.

Rose loves saying goodbye to everyone. At school, I've been told on numerous occasions that she sends everyone off with a wave.  Often it's a full arm wave goodbye, but sometimes she curls her fingers into a fist to say goodbye. Colin calls it her Italian "Ciao, Bella" goodbye.

On her developmental checklist at the doctor, waving goodbye is an 11-month-old developmental task. Filling out the form made me a proud mama. In addition to the waving, her ability to cruise, know mama and say mama, and ability to pick things up with the pincer grasp are all older baby tasks.  She's met all her developmental milestones at 9 months and has quite a few 10 and 11-month-old milestones down.

This month Rose caught her first virus at school - the super contagious, but thankfully mild "Hand, Foot, and Mouth."  William caught it first and passed it on to Rose (they share a lot!).  He was out all week with a high fever. I got the call Tuesday morning to pick her up and we kept her out all week not because she acted sick, but because she would probably infect the other kids. Her fever never raised above 99 degrees and she acted fine the whole week.  If she didn't get some blisters on her hands, I would not have believed she had the virus.  I spent two days at home with her and Colin spent the the final two days before the weekend. I'm pretty sure Colin was ready for Rose to go to school on Monday after they had 4 days together!  I managed to get the following awesome video of her talking while she was home "sick."  People warned me that I could get the virus from her - especially since she loves giving open-mouth kisses - but if I did get anything, I couldn't tell.

Rose still loves the letter "f" and now also loves "ba-ba-ba" and "ma-ma-ma."  We sing lots of "Ba-Ba Black Sheep."

This month Rose has taken the leap to generally eating what we eat. We had a dinner party at my former supervisor's house and she was on her best behavior, eating lots of the pork, butternut squash, and grapes.  She could eat her weight in grapes, with meat (of any type) being a close second. She is now starting to stick out her tongue to taste food before deciding if she wants it or not. When she doesn't want any more she uses her hands to push the food away and/or keeps her mouth sealed shut.  She's also pretty good at drinking from a cup.

We still get 5-6 hour stretches of sleep, but they continue to be at random times at night. Sometimes she goes to bed at 8 and is up at 12am for a feed and then goes her long stretch until 5-6am.  Other times, she goes to bed at 8 and sleeps until 1-2am and then does her second stretch. She's generally pretty sleepy at 5 or 6am and likes going back to sleep until 8am.  The time change this month worked to our advantage because she was struggling to get up before 8am, which made getting to work on time very difficult!  For the past week or two, she's been up and happy closer to 7-7:30am.  For the past few months, Colin and I have said countless time that we have the perfect child - minus her sleeping pattern.  Today, the doctor suggested we need to put her to bed in her crib awake. She's never had a problem going to sleep - it's the staying asleep that is the problem. Both last night and tonight she was put to bed awake and fell asleep on her own without trouble. One of these nights I'm hoping a pattern of sleeping through the night will develop.

Little Miss Independent is also Miss Curious or Miss Doesn't-Want-To-Miss-A-Thing!  Naps at school are two or three 20-30 minute stretches. The only place Rose will nap longer than 45 minutes is in the carseat or in the stroller. We sometimes park the stroller in the house and let her continue her nap so she gets a decent one in on the weekends.  Sunday she slept 2 hours in the stroller!

We continue to use cloth diapers at all times except overnight, but it looks like the elastic band on some of our regular diapers are starting to stretch and I think she is having more clothes changes (because of leaking) at school.  I've read about people replacing the elastic on several cloth diapering online groups and need to investigate further to extend the life of the diapers. I'm surprised they are already stretched at 9 months, but we do wear/wash them twice a week.

I am so excited to report that Rose has still never been given any formula. The drop in my milk supply and thought of giving her formula was really stressing me out and I received an outpouring of support from some mothers after last month's post.  I've been eating oatmeal almost every day and I bought some fenugreek supplements that are meant to increase supply. I have noticed a slight increase in the amount of milk I pump.  Whether it's related to the oatmeal, fenugreek, or a decrease in physical activity I don't know.  Outdoor soccer season has come to an end, so I'm now just playing 1-2 hours a week as opposed to the 3-6 hours I was playing in September and October.

Check out some of our fun pictures from this month:

Our little sunflower from Halloween

We swing quite a bit and Rose loves it!

She's bold - using just one hand to hold on

Doing her "Ciao, Bella" wave

Smiley girl

One of the few places where she takes long naps -
here in the stroller during the walk back from the swings

Don't forget to vote for Rose in the WRAL contest. If you already voted, you can vote once a day. Scroll to the next post for the link.