Big Girl Food Revisited

You may recall LE's first experience with rice cereal. She cried, threw her head to the side, and arched her back to get away. The first attempt at putting a spoon towards her mouth ended up with her hitting the spoon to the floor. In other words, it didn't go very well.

When Susie visited shortly thereafter, she gave it a go with LE. Once again, LE was not a fan. Then, I tried giving her the cereal every few days for about 2 weeks and could only get about four spoonfuls shoved into her mouth before she went back to the same antics from the first attempt.

I took a week hiatus, and with a little adjustments to the preparation of the cereal, we tried again. This time, lo and behold, she opened her mouth for the spoon and willingly took a bite. What just happened!? Thinking it was my imagination, I prepared the spoon with another scoop of slop cereal, and she opened her mouth again. She liked it! By the end, we both needed a bath, but it was well worth it. It's amazing how proud I was of her.

For the record, LE was 5 months and 6 days old.

Grandparent Invasions!

We... or should I just say LE... have had a lot of visitors this month! John's dad, Joe, came up the last weekend of July. He stayed just for one night in Madison, but we managed to pull together marvelous grilled pork chops with a bourbon cream sauce, roasted new potatoes, and caprese salad. Yum!

What?

I think LE was getting hungry. 

Check out the serious bed head.

Mmm! I love Sun Chips!
Ok, really I just love that the bag is so incredibly l  o  u  d!
(P.S. Check out the drool.) 

Reading with Dad...

Snuggles with Mom

Then John's mom, Susie, came to visit the weekend of August 13th. We cooked roasted chicken with rice and lemon cabbage, ate some pizza and gelato at a cute place in Middleton, shopped at the Farmer's Market around the Capitol on Saturday morning, went to church, and had a couple of friends over for dinner on Sunday night. Susie made "easy" beef burritos, I made mojitos, and our guests brought a corn side salad with bacon (way to John's heart) and delicious homemade bread. It was a packed weekend!

I think this was while Susie and I were slaving away.

Susie gave LE a bath.

Not sure you can scrub the curls out.

Then my dad came twice in August. He was in town for work the weekend of August 8th and then again this past weekend. We picked him up from the Milwaukee airport, ate in the Historical 3rd Ward, took a quick tour of Epic's new buildings, and went to church. Oh, I can't forget to mention that we also ate watermelon on the front porch and had brownies with vanilla ice cream for dinner. 

LE and I dropped Dad off at his parents' house in Roscoe on Sunday afternoon so that he and Grandpa could head up to the BMW festival at Elkhart Lake this week. Dad's going to be back this Friday.

Little fishy pjs are from LE's Nanny (aka Janet)

Singing opera-style

It's been a fun and busy month! The only grandparent we didn't get to see this month was Janet. LE misses you! 

Unexpected Visit to Wisconsin

One of my close friends from SMU-- Courtney-- sent me a text on Sunday to say that she was in Wisconsin for a conference until Thursday. I rearranged my schedule for the week, and LE and I drove up to La Crosse to see her on Tuesday afternoon. We stayed the night with Court and then headed back to Madison on Wednesday morning after breakfast. What a great surprise!

Despite getting her shots the day before, LE was a sweet girl all evening and even though she still woke up every two hours at night, she didn't wake Courtney. Even in the almost 3 hour car ride there and back, she did nothing but play with her toy bird and sleep. She was a great travel buddy.

We stopped on the way back because I heard some action coming from her diaper region. She ended up having to get a baby wipes bath and changed clothes because she peed on the changing table when I took her diaper off. The paper towels that I used to protect her from the table didn't end up protecting the table from her! Gross.

At Buzzard Bill's for dinner

Big eyes!

A little while after dinner, we got ice cream walked along the Mississippi.
Thankfully it wasn't buggy though it was quite humid.

Cheese!
(Look at how blonde LE's hair is getting.)

Big Girl Food

We were given permission to start LE on rice cereal mixed with breastmilk.

Hi! Let's try this.

First spoonful!

That wasn't so bad.

Wait, on second thought...

I HATED IT!

Best Day of My Life

That's what LE would have said yesterday if she could talk.  She didn't fuss at all and was super smiley with great-Grandma, great-Grandpa, and GBob (or whatever my dad will end up having her call him).  I really think it was the best day of her life, which is a weird thing to say without it being hyperbole.

Today was pretty good, too, but I was bound to change that! I'll show you, LE! She had her 4 month check-up. She's technically closer to 5 months but who's counting? She showed off her smiles to the doctor and nurses all the way up until she got her immunizations. She cried during the shots, but as soon as I picked her up and put her pacifier in her mouth, she cuddled right up in my neck. Both nurses commented on how sweet that was. I'm happy LE is a snuggly baby.

Soo... The doctor said everything looks great. LE is 14lbs, which puts her at the 50th percentile for her age. She's in the 50th percentile for head size, but she's slightly above the 75th percentile for height. She's perfect!

LE has graduated to getting to start eating rice cereal mixed in with milk. We attempted that tonight, and I'll post about it when I load the photos on the computer. To sum it up in two words: not happy.