Here at Liz and Iz’s, we are getting into the Christmas spirit, which means eggnog! And since Iz is not quite 1 year old yet, she is still drinking formula. During this holiday season, we will definitely take heed of Silk’s warning on their soy eggnog carton (which I wholeheartedly recommend, by the way!):
Who needs this warning, anyway??
I think Iz has been going through a growth spurt lately because she has been eating A LOT. As in a huge bowl of oatmeal or rice with fruits or veggies and her bottle for each meal plus finger foods like crackers and pieces of fruit.
I’m not breastfeeding anymore, but in my Google search for baby growth spurts, I came across this website. It basically tells you to hunker down with a good movie and lots of household help when your baby goes through a growth spurt, because you will be constantly nursing. Huh. That never happened to me. Iz has an amazing ability to eat all of her food at once, quickly. And then go hours without eating.
Sometimes I wish that her growth spurts would be more like that description. Sounds pretty relaxing, actually. More relaxing than constantly entertaining a 7 month old.
I guess we will have to settle for taking wagon rides around the house.
Have you seen this commercial?
Yeah, I have a similar situation. See, like I’ve mentioned before, Iz only eats three times a day. And if I don’t eat right after she has, here come the death stares. Even if I’m eating just a cracker, she is doing Jedi mind tricks in her tiny little brain. ”You want to give me a piece of that cracker…”
As much as I try Jedi mind tricks back on her (“This is not the cracker you are looking for”), it doesn’t work. So instead I am confined to eating only within three small windows of time. Yeah, I know, I could give her a snack during the day so that I could eat myself, but we are usually out and about at storytime or something anyway.
Between this and lifting a 20 pound weight for hours on end (AKA a 7 month old baby), it’s turned into a pretty good weight loss strategy! Maybe I should market it.
Okay, so I just had to share this: Iz and I were at the library yesterday browsing for some books. I know that a lot of kids books are somewhat strange (see this post), but I saw one yesterday that really grabbed my attention:
“I am a backhoe”
Huh?
In case you don’t believe me, here it is on Amazon.
Do you have Mom Brain? That’s what I call it whenever I am so tired or overwhelmed with baby stuff that I do something totally stupid.
Yesterday, I was giving Iz a bath. She LOVES baths, and recently discovered that the shower curtain makes a terrific toy. I was handing her toys and trying to keep her from pulling herself up to stand in the bathtub. I was about to get her washcloth to scrub her when I realized something was wrong. Ooops! I had put Iz straight in the bathtub with her diaper still on!
After her bath, I dried Iz off and went to put her onesie on for nighttime. I put it over her head. She likes to help me pull her shirt down. I then started looking for the armholes to put her arms through. Ooops again! I had put her head through one of the armholes! I thought the hole was a little small…
I try to take it off her by pulling it back over her head, but Iz doesn’t understand, so she is still trying to pull her shirt down while I am pulling up. This resulted in her getting stuck and flailing around for a few seconds before I finally got it off.
At least these make our day hilarious!
We are moving soon! Iz and I are moving and she is getting a brand-new fabulous room. I will post pictures when I get it set up and decorated.
Meanwhile, here are some ideas I found that I’d like to incorporate:
from Decal Lab
from Ikea Hackers
This is how our days usually go:
Iz: “Ba Oooh Aaaaaah Mama!”
Me: “Soooo tired!!!! Can we take a nap yet?”
Iz: Bounce bounce bounce crawl bounce!
Me: “Please?”
And then it happens. The elusive eye-rub. It’s as rare as catching a gazelle bare-handed on the Serengeti. But when Iz does it, it means one thing. A nap is close!
Well, sometimes. Sometimes after that eye-rub comes a yawn, maybe a cry or two, and she will fall asleep.
Then there are the times when she acts tired for a minute or two, and then the revival happens. Iz banishes the sleep demons and miraculously perks up again.
Iz: Play play play play play!!!!
Me: Arrrggghhh…
I like giving Iz fresh food, but a lot of times I just don’t have time to make her baby food. So Gerber has become a good friend. The one thing I don’t understand about baby food is the “stages”.
Iz’s doctor told me to give her “stage 1″ food. Okayyy… I just nodded and went and dutifully bought her apples and squash and whatever.
A couple of weeks later, I had an epiphany at Target. The other stages of food are exactly the same. So I bought those. They’re cheaper anyway!
I recently had another mother with a baby close to the same age as Iz ask if I had moved on from stage 1. I told her Iz ate all stages of food, as well as fresh avocado, jicama, eggplant, bananas, and more. She looked at me like I was a little crazy. Oops.
Does anyone else give their baby lots of variety in foods?
Okay, has anyone else noticed the influx of educational children’s books lately? It is getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. My mom and I took Iz to the public library yesterday and all of the titles were about learning something.
“All about the letter ‘H’”
“How to deal with your feelings”
and my personal favorite,
“People are not for biting”
Seriously? Where are the funny books about cows jumping over the moon, mice fighting wars, and pigs who want to be dogs?
Everything for babies nowadays has to be a lesson. But do babies really learn from reading a boring educational book? Maybe I should start reading science textbooks to Iz.
Everyone else with babies Iz’s age seem to be busy all the time feeding and changing their babies. And in between that, all the babies seem to do is sleep. Actually, I’m just assuming that’s what they are doing because I still can’t figure out what the other mothers are doing all day. I’ve met one or two moms who are out all the time like Iz and me, but where are the rest?
Iz, on the other hand, eats three meals a day with me and barely naps. That leaves us with tons of time. Sounds easy? Try entertaining a 6 month old for 12 hours a day. It’s exhausting. We have found a few things to do around town and we can usually be found at the children’s play museum or the library.
However, you just can’t be out all day, so there are one or two hours where we need to find something to do at home. Iz has lots of toys, and she plays with them (read: tries to cram as many of them in her mouth as she can at one time). We’ve figured out a few games that she can play, too. Here they are in case anyone else needs ideas: (I know I do!)
1. The Tower Game – Get a set of stacking cups. Iz has these from Ikea. Build the tower up a few times and get your child to knock them over. This usually happens because they try to grab the cups and knock the tower over in the process. Every time Iz knocked them over, I would yell “Tip me over!” (like from the teapot song). Once she related “Tip me over!” and knocking the cups over, I would build the tower and tell her to “Tip me over!”. After a while, it became a game where I would stack the cups as fast as I could and she would try to “beat” me by knocking them over before I was done.
2. The Walking Game – Once your baby shows an interest in standing/walking, this game is fun for them. Iz always wants to stand wherever we go, so I try to stand her as much as possible so she gets used to it. If there is something low that your baby can grab on to (like a low table), practice letting them hold on and standing alone. (Of course, make sure you are closely supervising because they can and will fall over!)
Once they are used to holding on by themselves, find a low piece of furniture that they like to stand against. I have a very low bed that is perfect. You can also use a low coffee table, but you might want to drape a blanket over it so that they won’t hurt themselves if they fall forward into it.
I put several of Iz’s favorite toys that she can grab with one hand on the bed, spread apart a little bit. I then stood her against the bed in front of her least favorite. She would play with that one for a second, then become interested in one that she likes more. Because I had placed it just out of her reach, she had to take a step to get to it. Again, make sure your hands are behind your baby because they probably will fall when they take a step!
This has been great practice for walking for Iz!
