Zoe is an Active 7 Month Old

At Rose's 6 Month doctor's appointment, the pediatrician told us that the next three months would be all about moving and it could not be more correct. During the month of March we noticed Zoe become more mobile as she began turning from her belly to her back and on to her belly again. By the time she turned seven months on April 7th, she would get from point A to point B on her own if you left her long enough. Not by crawling, or butt-scootching, but just by squirming and stretching. It's slow and steady, but she gets there.

Colin calls this age the "sticky finger" phase. You cannot keep anything within Zoe's reach without her grabbing it. It often goes into her mouth or on the floor.

Playing at the Durham Museum of Life and Sciences at 6 months

She's been acting like she's teething on-and-off for a long while now, but we don't see or feel any teeth coming. I thought she was going to have teeth early based on her desire to gum everything at a young age, but that has not been the case.

Besides huge developments in movement and coordination, Zoe's big news this month is that she started school on March 30, just shy of 7 months. There is a new(ish) school in the area that follows a Reggio-Emilia approach, which we feel is right for our girls. They are a Spanish-language immersion program, which I don't necessarily really care about, and all the teachers are native Latinas. My half Colombian friend hit the nail on the head when I was trying to describe how different it felt to have Latina women caring for Zoe. She said that Latina women are more "cariñosos" (affectionate), and I would definitely agree. It has felt like a good fit for us, and I feel it is right for an infant who really needs love and affection. In the first two weeks, both drop off and pick up were fairly calm. I'm used to putting everything away at Rose's school (diapers and wipes, food, extra clothes, etc). With Zoe, the head teacher just tells me to leave the bag and she'll put things away. Several times I stayed a little longer in the mornings, nursing Zoe before I left, and it was nice to chat with the teachers in Spanish and see their interaction with the children. I rarely speak Spanish these days, so it's very rusty, but still good enough to have a conversation. Both of Zoe's teachers are Peruvian. We will likely switch Rose over to Zoe's school to make it easier and less expensive, but we want to be sure it is a good fit for her before we do.

Heading to her first day of school on March 30

Zoe's first day of school

One characteristic of Miss Zoe is that she loves standing. She's still not quite sturdy enough to hold herself up long, or to cruise along things, but she'll get there soon. Once she started school, she became much more mobile. There are quite a few infants a little bit older than she is, so there are kids to model the milestones she will soon achieve. If she could skip crawling and go straight to walking, I think she would, though she doesn't mind holding herself up on her arms. She's very strong and is persistent if she wants something. While she is relatively calm, she is showing us that she can be fierce. She'll have to be to keep up with her sister!

Zoe's main teachers and the floater teachers who interact with her all tell me how happy she is to see them. It's still difficult to get her to smile for the camera, but she does love to smile at people. She also loves to talk to other children and to her babies and toys. When picking her up from school, she is often a chatterbox, telling me about her day.

We still continue to battle her skin rash, though I have become more lenient with my diet. I brought some dairy back in and she seemed to do okay, but still haven't started eating eggs. The first week at school, Zoe had more pumped milk from my early pumping days and her skin seemed the normal amount of rashy. Unfortunately, at the end of her second week at school, she developed a bad skin rash on her belly that looked like chicken pox. We went to the doctor, who said it looked like a virus, but that we should monitor it in case it did end up being the chicken pox. Thankfully it didn't appear to be itchy, and it didn't manifest itself as chicken pox. Unfortunately, she's now had it over a week and it still has not gone away. She was out of school all week and did have a fever for a day. We think she might also have had RSV, because she's had a bad cough and someone in her class had a confirmed case. Since a rash is not a symptom of RSV, it seems there are two separate things going on. I initially thought her belly rash was due to having more previously pumped milk (from before I was dairy/egg-free), but since it hasn't gotten better in week of getting fresh-only milk, I don't think that is the cause. If we could just get past the rash, I would feel much less stressed about Zoe's health. I guess there are many parents who would wish that a rash was the worst of their child's health problems, and I should be thankful that eczema is our main concern.

Zoe still loves mommy's milk, either straight from the spiget or from a bottle. At school she drinks 4-5 bottles of milk (3-4oz each), and eats solids fairly well. At home, solid foods are hit or miss. When she's with mommy, she really just wants to nurse. I just started drinking a tea that supposedly increases milk production and taking fenugreek occasionally, mainly on the days I am away from Zoe to try and pump more milk. After a week it seemed to help. I had been getting down to only producing 8-12oz of milk. With Zoe sometimes taking closer to 20oz at school (mostly the second week), I was starting to stress that I would run out. Though the reality is that I still probably have close to 100oz in the freezer. I'm just nervous about giving it to her because of the rash.

We still do cloth diapers and are officially out of the young infant sized diapers. Zoe is growing like a weed and we now just use all in one diapers. It has helped that Rose is now completely potty-trained (yippee!!), so all her cloth diapers are available for Zoe. The introduction of solid foods, and switch to less frequent pooping has brought with it the stinky and very large poops. It always makes me nervous when my girls don't poop every day, but I remember a period when Rose didn't poop for like 20 days and the doctor wasn't concerned. So far, Zoe's max has been 2 or 3 days without a poop. The issue we currently face with diapers is trying to figure out what works for Zoe. Rose did really well with the bum genius, but Zoe pees so much more and leaks through them. Between our old Bum Genius and Charlie Bananas, I'm finding that we might have the most success by using the Charlie Banana inserts in the Bum Genius diapers. In the spirit of Earth Day, I'll just interject here to give a huge shout out to my mom for replacing the elastics on ALL of Rose's diapers so we could use them for Zoe!!  Thanks Mom! 

At 7 Months, I still can't get a big smile for the camera

Nor can I get the girl to sit still

This is a fun age with Zoe. She's getting mobile, but won't get too far too fast and she interacts with us much more than before. Rose is starting to enjoy playing with her sister and helping us care for her. Zoe loves watching her sister and playing with her things ... we see glimpses of fighting over toys in the near future. But as quick as Rose is to lash out at Zoe's sticky fingers, she is equally quick to give her sister big hugs and kisses.

Stay tuned for a recap of a recent trip to the North Carolina mountains during some cold April weather!

The Seven Month Update

How is it possible that the month of August, and the summer, has already come and gone?!  Thankfully my mom took lots of pictures of Rose during the month so I have some to post on the blog. Unfortunately, I don't have any videos from last month.  And, because we were traveling (more on that in another post), her 7 month pictures were a week late.

During the month of August, Miss Rose spent quite a number of days splashing in the pool. I think she knows more of our neighbors than Colin and I do! When we would take her to the pool on the weekends, people we don't know would recognizer her.

Since she has spent so much time in the water, she is rather fearless when the water hits her face.

She continues to grow like a weed and thankfully has remained very healthy.

Here's a summary of Rose at 7 Months:

• Rose continues to be so much fun. She can give a big grin and a wholehearted laugh - especially when tickled.
• According to some of the baby books, this is the time to teach baby right from wrong. On many occasions, I have to tell Rose to be more gentle. She loves to pull mommy's hair, and sometimes it hurts!  She also sometimes grabs Darwin's hair. I think he also thinks it's too rough, so his response is to get up and walk away.  In addition to pulling hair, she also pinches and her pinches also hurt. I've been the recipient of many of of these and she seems to do it quite a bit when nursing.
• Little Miss Rose does not want to miss anything. She is easily distracted (even when nursing) and needs to see what's going on. One of the funniest sights is seeing her try to look behind you when you block her view. She moves from side to side trying to look at what you are blocking. She had us all laughing so hard our stomachs hurt one night when I was trying to block the TV and she kept looking for it. When she realized we thought it was funny, she would try to see the TV and then look quickly back for the laughter to ensue.
• Speaking of playing, Rose also knows how to play peek-a-boo. It is the cutest thing ever. She'll grab her dress or a towel and hold it over her face and then quickly drop it for you to say "peek-a-boo" or "te-te" (in Portuguese).
• One of the songs that we use to calm and quiet Rose down when she's crying (especially if the crying happens when we are driving) is a Portuguese song, "As Palminhas da Catrina." 
• In the past, we have danced to the music while holding Rose in our arms, now she rocks to the music on her own while sitting.
• Rose's favorite thing in the whole world is to bounce - in the jumperoo, in the exersaucer, or in your arms - it doesn't matter as long as she can bounce.  Her second favorite thing is probably splashing water.
• We continue to put Rose on her tummy despite her protests. From a seated position, she tries to climb up whatever she can (tables, people, dogs, etc.) to standing.  When she does get from a seated position to all fours, she is fairly quick to give up and turn on her back. She is able to get from point A to point B without crawling though. It's slow and it involves a bit of butt crawling and shifting from sitting to all fours and back to sitting and alternating legs, but she gets there.
• Rose still drinks about 24oz of breastmilk and eats about 1-2 "meals" per day.  In addition to the carrots and avocados she tried last month, she has now also had cucumbers, green beans, sweet potatoes, grapes, bananas, eggs, beef, and salmon. She has done a great job holding many of the foods that are cut into sticks (like carrots, cucumbers, etc.) and loves cucumbers and green beans the best.  She still prefers feeding herself to being fed by a spoon - but had no problem downing hamburger meat from a spoon!
• Her two bottom teeth have fully emerged from the gums and she uses them to chew her food. We can see the imprint of the cucumber from her teeth and can feel them with our finger. They are still a little difficult to see because they are small, but they are there!
• Rose's bowel movements are much more mature now and occur at least once every other day and sometimes multiple times a day. They are certainly stinky, formed little turds.  I invested in some cloth diaper liners that provide a barrier between the poop and the diaper. They are flushable and keep the diapers clean (when I remember to use them!).  We also have a cool diaper sprayer that we set up on the toilet. It's kind of like a bidet and sprays the poop right out of the diaper (on the high pressure setting). You just have to be careful to spray it in the toilet and not all over the bathroom!

Here are her 7 month pictures (taken a week late on her first full day of school) and a few pictures from earlier in the month.

September 15, 2014
First Day of School
7 months and 1 week old

Swinging inside on a hot summer day

Playing on the floor with her toys

Holding a sweet potato "stick" and feeding herself

Hanging out with mommy, daddy and Darwin before bed

Playing in her exersaucer - and trying to keep her eyes open despite the flash

Doing what she loves the most- bouncing! And that flash is too bright!

Loving her cucumbers, green beans, and carrots!

Rose Starts School

I was very lucky to be able to delay the start of institutionalized care for Rose until 7 months. The thought of dropping off a 6-week-old, such a tiny, innocent piece of precious cargo, to strangers, was frightening.  I know people do it and I would have done it too if I had to, but I am so grateful for my professional and personal support systems for allowing me to enroll Rose in school when I felt she would be ready.  Now that she is somewhat mobile, very sociable and extremely interactive, I feel comfortable bringing her to a place where she can more fully develop with instruction and socialization.  Being an experienced mom for 7 months and with the benefit of hindsight, I would have been comfortable taking her to school at 6 months, or maybe even 5 months, but not before that time.  I guess this opinion stems from a belief that you have to be a little tough to make it in a setting with 3 other kids competing for attention and I didn't think Rose could hold her own before 5 months.

After talking to some friends and researching the day care/infant school options in the area, Colin and I decided to check out 6 schools. Four were in a similar price range and two were much more expensive. We didn't plan on enrolling Rose in the more expensive schools, but we wanted to see how they compared to the schools that were middle-of-the-road in pricing.  Neither of the expensive schools showed they were worth the significantly higher cost.  Of the four schools that interested us, two came recommended by my soccer teammates, one was recommended by several people we knew in various capacities, and the fourth was a school I found doing research online. All of the schools shared details about their curriculum and their safety protocols. And they each tried to "sell" us on what made their school unique, or better than the others.

We ruled out the first school pretty quickly because of the institutional feel of it. And we ruled out the third one we saw when they said they would not handle cloth diapers.  That left us debating between the school that came recommended by several and the school I found doing my own research. The recommended school seemed to have a strong focus on the curriculum and they were willing to work with us on learning how to use cloth diapers. The school I found had a very cozy and comfortable feel to it, had experience using cloth diapers, and seemed to focus on healthy living and healthy eating.  I guess this description makes it out to be a "hippy school" but they also have a solid curriculum with music, language, arts, etc.  We ultimately decided to go with this hippy school, which sold us on their experience with cloth diapers, providing snacks from Whole Foods, backyard gardening, and composting with the kids as part of their learning experience.

Before Rose started full time, she had a trial-run "free day."  We dropped her off a little after 9am and picked her up around 3:30pm. It was good to practice preparing for school and to get orientation to the check-in and check-out process.  Unfortunately, the drop off experience was a bit of a disaster. When we arrived, there were already 8 kids in the class, so a third teacher had to come in to maintain the 4:1 ratio. A couple of the kids were crying and it seemed a bit chaotic.  I'm sure it didn't help that one of the teachers had to step away from the kids to greet us and show us around. To make matters worse, as we were getting ready to leave, Rose lost her balance while standing holding a bar, fell on her face, and proceeded to cry.  Leaving the school that morning I started running various scenarios through my head on how we could keep her out of day care a little longer.  Three-thirty could not come fast enough.  Thankfully, we walked in to a smaller group of kids sitting around the teacher as she was reading a book. Rose didn't even care that we were there, she was enjoying herself with the other kids!  If the pick-up did not go so well, I'm not sure what we would have done.

We have now completed two days of school and have three left this week. On Monday, Rose seemed interested in her new environment and we had no problems dropping her off. The class environment was calm the whole time we were there.  The pick-up process was similarly easy. Rose was actually the last to be picked up and we walked in to Rose being rocked in the chair by the teacher.  Tuesday's drop-off was a little more difficult. The little girl that cried during the morning of Rose's trial visit was crying again when we walked in. All the other children were sitting quietly around the teacher. One look at the group (and maybe because of the crying girl), and Rose was also in tears. The teacher was quick to offer her comfort and include her in the activities of the morning, which quickly calmed her.  By the time I walked out, she wasn't interested in whether or not I was there.  Pick-up was again very easy since there were still two teachers in the class and Rose was only one of two children left. She was sitting with the teacher on the floor, drinking her milk.  The teachers both gave glowing reports of Rose's day - I think taking a 1.5 hour nap definitely helped!

While some schools have cameras in the class so parents could watch their children, this school does not. Instead, they have an electronic program where each child's daily progress and activity reports are entered throughout the day. We can look to see when Rose is napping, when she's eating, and sometimes we get a photo summary of something she did during the day.  I like that it keeps us connected to her day and it's very helpful in showing me the patterns that may be developing in her schedule. I also don't have to take time from the teachers to find out when she last ate and was changed when I pick her up.

I do hope Rose enjoys going to school and that she learns many of the good behaviors that are modeled by the other children (and not the bad ones!).  I'm overdue for her 7 month update, but I'll share in this post that she is very close to crawling and is pretty good at holding herself up on furniture.  She is also a big talker.  Stay tuned for a more thorough update on her progress.  For now, I'll leave you with some pictures of Miss Rose's first experience with school.

Preparing Rose's food for school

Wondering if mommy expects her to carry her own bags

Daddy walking Rose into her first school

Mommy walking Rose into her classroom

A calm and inviting start to the first full day of school

Didn't take long for Rose to settle in