Giving Thanks!

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;

remember that what you now have was once

among the things you only hoped for.”
― Epicurus

 

 "God has two dwellings; one in heaven,

and the other in a meek and thankful heart."

― Izaak Walton

Well, we're a little past due on our seven month update, but I wanted to include our Thanksgiving holiday with the post too, so I've held off. The past month has been quite a triumphant month for Emma. She's reached a lot of milestones, including learning how to crawl and getting her first two teeth. Needless to say, our lives just got a lot more interesting.

So here's our monthly round-up categorized by things we are thankful for!

Almost mobile!

• A healthy and growing baby: Emma's done a lot of growing in the past month. First, she has officially surpassed our dog Lizzy in weight (by a whole pound), and while she might be on smaller side falling in the 30th percentile, she is mighty and doggedly persistent. At the beginning of the month, she was just starting to sit up on her own, but she didn't really care for it much. So to encourage her to practice more, we began to let her sit up during bath time, which is one of her favorite times of the day. It was like she had this great epiphany: splashing with my hands is fun; I can see more things; and I got new toys to play with in the tub! From the first night we let her try it, she was hooked. Of course, with sitting up came the knowledge that she could go from sitting up on to her knees and that her knees moved. I think it was about a week from rocking on her knees to figuring out how to move her arms and hands to actual crawling. You can see the progression of her development pretty well in this month's videos. And of course now, there's no stopping her. She's ready to explore this whole new world (or at least find the next door stop to play with).

Video: Emma legitimately crawling!

 

 

Can you see my little teeth?

The weekend she learned how to crawl was also the same weekend that her first two bottom teeth came in! She had been battling with these teeth for a while, but it seemed like they were never actually going to show up. But one day, I was putting some Orajel on her gums, and I noticed it felt different - a little rough. So Kevin and I tried to finagle a way to look into her mouth (open and say "ah" just doesn't compute), and when we finally got a peek - there they were just barely poking through. While they're still not all the way in, you can clearly see them now whenever she smiles or laughs. Now that she has teeth, she's had to realize what kind of things they can do - like when she puts her feet in her mouth and bites down. Now, it hurts and tears most likely follow. There's definitely a learning curve to be had here.

Emma sitting in Grandpa
Elmer's lap at cousin
Christian's soccer game

• Parents and grandparents who love us and our child: We are truly blessed that most of our family lives within an hour of our house. This means that Emma gets to see all her grandparents, great grandparents, aunt and uncles, and cousins pretty frequently. To say she's spoiled would be an understatement. I don't think she leaves any grandparents' house without first giving away all her kisses.
  
  This past football season Kevin's parents, Sandra and Elmer, have been keeping Emma, so that we can keep up my family's tradition of going to the Texas A&M home games in College Station. My youngest brother Stephen is still working on his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering there, so it's a chance to catch up with him too. Emma's had a lot of fun adventures with Sandra and Elmer, like going to bible study, soccer games, and a baby shower. Since some of the football games have been quite late, she's even gotten to spend the night multiple times! She definitely loves it because she gets spoiled with all the attention, there are new places to explore, and two more puppies to love on at their house.

Emma playing with
her Pappy after work

She also usually goes once a week to my parents' house to spend the day, so that I can have the day to do errands, housework, or just have some personal time without a baby under foot. Emma and her Mimi spend lots of time snuggling and giggling while Pappy is at work. But as soon as he gets home, he's ready to play with Emma. He's the best at making all kinds of weird noises and faces to get her to laugh. Emma loves playing with all with all of my mom's "retro" toys and spends a lot of time chasing her plush ball all over the living room. 

It means so much to us that our families willingly give up their time to help us out or to spend it with Emma. For Kevin and I, it's meant that we can spend some quality time together, just as husband and wife for a bit, which in turn helps us better a better mom and dad to Emma.

Our last view of this Kyle Field before renovation construction begins

• Making new memories as a family: A year ago at Thanksgiving, we were just finding out that we were having a little girl. We couldn't have imagined then just how many different ways that little girl would impact our lives. Our lives now revolve around bottles and bed times, giggles and gurgles. Sure, it's a big challenge trying to figure out what to do as parents (they really don't give you manuals) and there are days and nights when Kevin and I look at each other in exhaustion and wonder how we're going to make to the next day - but we wouldn't trade it for the world. Whenever we're away from Emma, we find ourselves talking about her, mimicking her latest noise to pester each other, or laughing at some Emma moment that we forgot to tell the other about. She's always on our minds and in our hearts.

 Here are some of our personal favorites:

 

 

 

Video: Emma and her daddy

 



And some photos from this year's Thanksgiving at the farm:

 

Click here to view more pictures and videos from the month!

Where'd half a year go?

Well another month has come and gone. Emma keeps my days so busy that I hardly have time to even notice. I remember thinking when I first started to stay at home how the days just dragged on, and I lost a sense of what day of the week it was. Well, that's not the case anymore. Since Emma's a lot more mobile now, a lot of my time is spent chasing her down or rescuing her from her latest situation. It's not that I'm not paying attention, it's just that she moves that fast! And heaven help us, she's not even crawling yet!!

So what have our days been full of, you ask. Here's a look!

We sleep...whenever and wherever.

 

We practice our new skills...like sitting and learning how to get up on all fours.

We gobble down food...quite enthusiastically!

 

We play games....like peek-a-boo.

We go out and about...to shop, to visit, and to party!

 

 And when this mommy gets a moment...she's been sewing!

Click here to view more pictures and videos from this month!

You've got a friend in me!

When you have a baby, it can be hard at times to get out of the house, and I think this is especially true when you have your first (not that I have any knowledge otherwise) because you really feel like you have no clue about what you're doing. I think for the first two months, the only time I left the house with Emma was when someone else could go with me. I think I was really just scared to leave the house with her on my own. What if she cried and wouldn't stop? What if I forgot something we needed at home? What if other people thought I was a bad mother? What if I was a bad mother? These fears were debilitating and confidence shaking - even for a person who used to teach teenagers for a living! And after a while, this routine got old and staying at home with Emma felt very isolating.

Step in the Neil family - Matt, Cayte, Beckett, and Dinah Grace! Cayte texted me this summer saying that they were going to do a swim day at their house one day a week after the big kids finished swim lessons, and she invited Emma and I to come and join them. Now part of me was like, "Yay! Human contact! With adults!!" But the other part of me was more like, "Swimming? With a BABY?!?! Being in a swimsuit after being pregnant!? What if she cries? What if she POOPS?!?" You get the gist...it was that fear creeping up again. But I felt like I needed to bite the bullet and take a chance because honestly, I really didn't have any mommy friends, and I needed to get out.

Our weekly swim day turned out to be such a blessing in disguise! Not only did we get some much needed outdoor time, but it gave me a chance to ask a lot of my mommy questions and hear stories from other moms who had been there and done that. God definitely placed Cayte's invitation in our life at the exact right moment. It was also fun for both of us to watch the other kids play in the pool, even if all we could do was pretty much float around.

Baby doll Emma, Dinah Grace, and Emma

Now there's something about kids and babies that mesh so well. They're equally fascinated by each other. And that was totally true for Matt and Cayte's little girl, Dinah Grace, who's two years old. From the moment they got Emma's birth announcement, Dinah Grace has been fascinated with Emma. In fact, she took that birth announcement everywhere she went until it fell apart. Every time we went over to the Neils' house, Emma and Dinah Grace hung out together, and we were serenaded in the pool with choruses of "Baby Emma." It was beyond precious! So when Dinah Grace got a baby doll for her birthday this year and went about choosing names for it, can you guess what she chose? That's right, Emma! So now, we have real Emma and baby Emma, the doll.

Dinah Grace is whispering to Emma, "I love you!"

Kisses from Dinah Grace

Smiles all around!

So while my Emma probably has no clue what's going on, she is clearly loved by her friend Dinah Grace, and we are equally blessed by having the Neil family as our friends!

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up,
just as in fact you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:14

 

Where there is no counsel, the people fall;
But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

Proverbs 11:14

   

Five for five!

Well another month has passed here in the Banes household, and Emma is growing and changing SO fast. Whenever I sit down to write one of these posts, I find myself going back and looking at all the old pictures and videos. I am amazed by how different she is in just 5 months, and sometimes I find myself a little sad that these stages don't last a little longer. But since I have not managed to harness the 1.21 gigawatts it apparently takes to travel through time, I must be content to live in the moment.

So, here's our five things about being five months old:

Lizzy gives good kisses!

• Lizzy is Emma's best friend: Whether she knows it or not, Lizzy is Emma's favorite toy/activity/friend, and for her part, Lizzy is pretty accommodating with what she lets Emma get away with when they interact. Once Emma learns to crawl though, poor Lizzy is never going to get a moment's rest. One of our favorite "games" to play is "Where's Lizzy?" All you have to do is ask Emma this question and her eyes immediately go looking for her puppy, and she usually laughs or gets all excited when she finds her.  If Lizzy's within an arm's reach, then Emma starts holding her hands out to touch her, and usually Lizzy responds with puppy kisses. It's an especially useful game for when Emma is fussy because it distracts her in an instant. On the flip side, if you ask Emma "Where's mommy?" or "Where's daddy?," she does nothing. I guess we need to work on that some.

Video: Emma, Kevin, and Lizzy playing "chase"

 

 

Time to rise and shine!

• Sleep is a beautiful thing: In case you haven't noticed, a lot of our pictures of Emma involve her sleeping. That happens for two reasons: (1) she's just so stinking cute when she's asleep and (2) she's a really good sleeper most of the time. She is definitely like her parents in this regard - we love our sleep time. So when we moved Emma upstairs to sleep in her crib, it was a transition for us all. First, we couldn't see or hear her as well any more, which meant that Kevin and I spent our nights only half sleeping and just listening for any rustle or whimper. So to combat our sleeplessness, we went out and bought a video monitor. Now, it eases our minds that we can peek in on her, if needed, and honestly, we rarely have to wake up to do so. Since she's learned to roll, we've discovered that Emma likes to sleep on her side. It's funny to see how much she actually rolls around and moves during the night because she's never in the position you left her unless she's sleeping super hard. Emma sleeps an average of 10 hours a night - and sometimes all in one session. Mostly though she sleeps for 6-8 hours, wakes up to eat, and then sleeps another 2-4 hours. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty nice. I think Kevin's jealous that we sleep in most days, but I guess that there's got to be some perks to be the parent who gets covered in slobber and changes diapers all day long. Of course, nap time is another story. We get about 3-4 in a day, but they're all usually pretty short. It's like she knows when 30 minutes are up, and she's ready to play again. Right now, we just let her nap wherever is most convenient - in her room, in our downstairs portable crib, in her Boppy, chair, or swing. Or my favorite, in my arms!

Desperate times call
for desperate measures

Now since sleep is such a precious commodity, when we have nights that don't go as planned it hits all of us pretty hard. Teething and gas seem to be our biggest culprits when it comes to interrupting a peaceful night's sleep. Unfortunately, when Kevin was out of town a few weeks ago, Emma hit me with a double whammy of teething and gas fussiness. She was up every 1.5 to 2 hours crying. Let me tell you - doing the stairs got old fast. So, I moved her downstairs, but the problem still persisted, and she only really calmed down when being held. Finally about 5 AM, desperation set in. Emma was tired, I was tired, and Lizzy was annoyed that we were both interrupting her sleep time. So in an effort to appease all parties involved, I came up with the idea of putting the changing pad in bed with me and letting Emma sleep there, so that I could keep a comforting hand on her and know that she wouldn't be rolling around in the bed or suffocating under the covers. Thankfully, it worked!

 

Emma doing her baby Pilates

• A girl's got to move: Well, we've successfully survived a month of having a baby who can roll over. She still hasn't figured out how to go from tummy to back, but at least she's stopped crying about having to spend time on her tummy once she does roll over. She actually spends about three quarters of her play time on her tummy. Now though, it seems like she's taking a baby Pilates class. When she's on her back, Emma will lift her head and feet at the same time like she's trying to figure out how to sit up. She's definitely going to have some strong core muscles. When Emma's on her tummy, she's gotten to the point where she can extend her arms all the way to hold herself up. It looks like she's doing mini-baby push ups because she goes up and down and up and down. The other thing Emma has taken to is scooting. Only, she does it backwards! And very efficiently too! I'll leave Emma on the blanket playing on her back to run to the restroom, and when I come back she's rolled over and 2 feet from where I left her! It's funny to watch though because sometimes she scoots herself into situations she can't get out of - like running out of room cause she got to the wall or the bar on the play gym.

Playing in her exersaucer

We've started working on coordinating her leg strength too. She's a pretty powerful kicker. Any time she finds something funny or entertaining, she kicks those legs in happiness. Needless to say, Kevin's getting pretty wet during bath time because those legs go non-stop! To help burn off some of that leg energy, we got out the exersaucer (which is HUGE), and she loves to move and groove in it. If you watch her feet, she likes to move up and down on her tippy toes a lot. The one point of contention in our household is teaching her how to sit up, mainly because she'd rather stand, and she's pretty adamant about it. When you take Emma's hands and help her sit up, she insists on keeping her legs locked straight and won't bend in the middle. So it's easier to let her stand all the way up, and then get her to sit. She still flops over after a few seconds, but she's getting better at it little by little. After all this exercise, she's pretty tuckered out by the end of the day, and sometimes, she just admits defeat by laying face down on the floor. 

This is the look of tired defeat

Practicing!

• Learning to eat food is an adventure: We got the go ahead at 4 months to start solids with Emma, but at the time we were still having trouble with finding a formula that didn't tie  Emma's system up in knots. While she's still mostly nursing, we like having the option to use formula when needed. Anyways, we found one, and once Kevin was home from traveling to Corpus Christi, we figured we'd give this food thing a go. We started off by just letting Emma practice sitting in the high chair. Since she isn't too much of a fan of sitting, we thought we might need to start there. She did really well in it, and I think she liked getting to look at things at new perspective/height. So after a few "dry" runs, we worked up the courage to add food to the equation.

What? Is there something on my face?

Now, if you've never attempted trying to feed a baby yourself - it's quite messy, comical, frustrating, and did I mention, messy! I mean, how do you tell an infant to open and close her mouth? Or to swallow the pretty much tasteless, weirdly textured mush? (Side note: if you blow on an infant's face, it triggers the swallow reflex). But I can see why so many parents open and shut their own mouths while feeding the baby. You involuntarily mimic the behavior you want to see happen. I have to say Emma did pretty well, even though I think Kevin and I made the cereal a little too thin and it was more like slurping than swallowing. Since then, I think we've all gotten the hang of things a little bit better, and now she opens her mouth when the spoon is coming. We've still got some work to do on learning to close our mouth though. Next, we'll move on to oatmeal and then some fruits and veggies!

Video: Emma's first bites

 

 

I'm all smiles!

• An expressive explosion: Emma's got two modes: pensive observer and expressive munchkin. For the past 4 months, she mainly just been content to watch quietly all the stuff that's been going on around her. Even when playing with her toys, she seemed caught up in her own little world, cooing occasionally. Well, that's not her dominant mode anymore. Now, she likes to make noise, shout, and share everything. Her range of expressions is priceless. I wish I had a pair of those Google glasses, so I could snap pictures from my point of view in an instant. How she reacts to things cracks me up. I would love to know what she's thinking, but for now, I just have settle with coming up with my own inner monologue of what's going on in her head. She's also found a new range of noises and sounds, including growling like a gremlin, fake coughs after real ones, belly laughs, and yelling just cause she can. When she wakes up in her crib, she spends the first 15-20 minutes just rolling around and making noises (mostly raspberries and growls) until she cries that she's ready to get up for the day. Of course, we still have our thoughtful moments, but now she's just more apt to share how she's feeling afterwards. Here are some of our favorite expressions!

Click here for more pictures and videos from the month!

4 months of fun!

Well, it's been a while, and I've been remiss on updating the blog in a timely manner...again. While it doesn't seem like we always do a lot during the day, it's enough to keep me busy. There's feeding time, play time, diaper changes, crying time, nap time, taking Lizzy out, doing laundry, cooking (sometimes), and I do like to do something for myself once in a while. Some days my level of accomplishment is measured by whether or not I got to shower before Kevin gets home from work. But I have to say, hanging out with Emma and Lizzy is pretty fun most days. Here's what's been going on!

• Hanging out with family is fun: We've been visiting with lots of family members this past month. My cousin April and her family were transferred back to Texas, so they got the chance to come down and visit our grandmother and us while they were waiting on their housing to get setup. So second cousins Patrick, who is 6, and Lila, who is 1, got in some photo ops with Emma. Granny Marjorie had even bought Emma and Lila matching outfits for when they got together. Emma was captivated with watching Pat and Lila - they were people closer to her size! It was fun to see all the little kids together and reminded me of what it was like to have my younger cousins around when growing up. They definitely tired each other (and Lizzy) out.
  
  Speaking of cousins, Emma and I went over to Kevin's parents and got to hang out with Christian and Andrew. Christian is 4, and Andrew is 25 days older than Emma. Grandma loves having all her grandchildren together in once place, and with grandpa and great grandmother there too, there were plenty of people to love on all these kiddos. Christian was great entertainment for Emma and Andrew. Both of the babies loved watching him dance around, and his silly antics made them smile and laugh. Emma also discovered the fish tanks and was content to just sit there and watch the fish swim around.
  
  Lastly, we made the drive out to see my great-great aunt Gebe, my great-grandmother's sister. It was awesome to see 5 generations of our family visiting together. Of course, Emma was the star of the show as everyone talked to her and played with her. And since she's still at the stage where she's not afraid of strangers, Emma loved all the attention!

Halfway over

• Rolling over is hard work: Emma's new skill is rolling over from her back onto her tummy. It all started when she discovered her feet. They are quite an obsession of hers actually. She finds it so entertaining to reach out and hold her feet or to use her feet to touch (or kick) things. Everything is new again as she explores it with her feet. So since she was laying on her back holding her feet so much, she started to roll to her side more and more, and every once in a while, we gave her a little push so she surprisingly ended up on her tummy! Well soon, she didn't need that push any more and could do it on her own. The first few times she did it, I missed it because it happened so fast, or we'd suddenly find her on her tummy. Now, she does it all the time. For her, it's like a whole new world has opened up to see and experience. The play mat that was getting a little boring can now be seen from a new angle, and as she's progressed, she's started to reach for things while on her tummy.
  
  Now, this new skill has not come without its drawbacks. First, she doesn't know how to roll back the other way, which means when she is tired of tummy time or didn't want to be on her tummy to begin with, she cries. Loudly. It gets kind of frustrating to roll her back over, just to have her do it again. Like seconds later. Multiple times in a row. Unfortunately, cause and effect does not compute in the mind of a 4 month old yet. However, the biggest drawback of Emma starting to roll over is no more swaddling to sleep. Now this is hard for a baby girl who's used to sleeping like a double stuffed burrito. And we found this out the hard way...on the first night in her big girl crib, Emma rolled over while swaddled onto her tummy 30 minutes after being put down to bed. The novelty of rolling had not worn off yet and our usually awesome sleeper kept waking herself up by either rolling over when she roused slightly or by startling herself awake because she had to sleep with her arms out to be able to lift and reposition her head. So, we've moved on to using microfiber sleep sacks, which she's doing better at sleeping in but there's still a learning curve as she slowly figures out that she likes to sleep on her side but not that darn tummy!

 

• The Boppy pillow has many uses: Now when we were registering for Emma's arrival, everyone said that a Boppy pillow was a must have when it came to feeding Emma. Now, I've never actually had to use it for this purpose since I kind of have my own built version, so our boppy pillow has had to earn its keep by serving a variety of other functions.
  
  Here are some of its jobs: 

  

  A reading/lounge chair

  

  A naptime sleeper

  

  

  A tummy time television watcher
  (We're watching HGTV)

   

  

  Another comfy place for Lizzy to usurp
   

Click here for more pictures and videos from this month!