Adelle: 6 months

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The half-year mark has arrived!  Baby Cakes has managed to survive her siblings and her parents, a pretty remarkable feet.

Adelle's stats:

26" long, 16 pounds.

Her foot has a little room to grow in the 0-6 months pediped shoes.  She's mostly moved into 6-9 month clothes. I love shopping for clothes for her, too. So many cute things to spit up on!

Major achievements in the past month:

Preparing for take-off!

Baby has landed!

Sitting! In the days leading up to her 6 month birthday, Adelle has been putting herself into a seated position.  Usually she goes from sitting to hands and knees frequently, so she's often in a different place/position than just a minute earlier.

Screeching - Adelle enjoys exercising her voice. A Lot. If you didn't know she was okay, you might think she's injured.

Babbling - "Mamama omommom ba!"

I think Adelle may talk more than the other two kids did - they were both pretty quiet in the "babble" stage. They are making up for that now.  Perhaps A has to talk more now to keep up with her sibs?

Table food - She gets little tastes of pretty much anything.  She also enjoys chasing Cherrios and bananas. She has quick hands, so watch out! I have a different approach to feeding A, compared to the previous two kids.  At the time I was first feeding E and N, pediatric thought was that it was better to slowly introduce foods, starting with the least allergenic foods, for the purpose of (hopefully) reducing the chance of food allergies.  Now, it appears that "they" think it doesn't make a difference, and to consider delaying specific food categories only if it is a known food sensitivity in the family (so, we don't do too much with milk products). So, I'm not being lazy 3 kids later, I'm being informed of current information! Right?

Other things:

Yummm.... toes!

Mouthing.Every.Thing.

Gymnastic nursing is starting to enter her repertoire as well. She is easily distracted while nursing, often leading to short nursing sessions or both of us getting covered in breastmilk. It can also lead to some unfortunate exposure, but really, if you've got a problem with my breast and my nursing, you need to get over it. I'm just sayin'. I'm protected by state law. And if I were to manage nursing A longer than 20 months, and it offends your delicate sensibilities to think of a kid old enough to ask for "nee-nees" breastfeeding, then go hide. Your problem, not mine. Enough of my militant breastfeeding. Back to cute babies!

Poised for a launch out the door.

She is still improving her army crawl. She's pretty fast.  Part of this may sometimes involve a kind of frog hop - while up on hands and knees, she digs her toes in, straightens her legs to a downward facing dog position, and then quickly springs both legs forward under her middle.

Stretch! Post-nap exercise. Love the chubby legs!

Adelle's naps are (unfortunately) random. When she does nap, they tend to be shorter naps - 30 -45 minutes. Sometimes she has several of these naps in a day, sometimes she manages a long nap or two. Other times it seems like very little napping occurs.  I think the girl needs more naps, though. No baby should have shadows under her eyes.

 

We are finally starting to catch more smiles on camera. Adelle started off life as a serene little baby, and she has continued to be low-key.  She loves, loves, loves her sibilings. Except when they get in her way, but that might annoy me more than it annoys her.

Now that Adelle is older, we she looks less like Elizabeth did as a baby. Similar, sure, but Adelle's hair and eyes are different.  She still looks enough like her older sister, though, that others remark on it!

 

 Now that she's 6 months, I'm going to stop my monthly update.  It's not like I was being very timely.  It's already 2 weeks past her birthday! Oh, I'll still update, don't worry.  I'm just going to give up trying to make sure I do it once a month. You'll know when things happen.

Dangerous Crayon gets fit

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I am (yet again) embarking on a health and fitness journey in these months after baby.

I am sad to report that I have actually GAINED about 10 pounds since giving birth. I am at an all-time non-pregnant weight high.  That is not a record I am please to have set.  My knees ache. I am stiff in the morning. I am tired. My husband and my mom have both expressed concern about my short term and long term health if I continue to remain overweight and continue to make poor choices.  Just looking around at my family, I see that we are a people who struggle with our weight.  In addition to having a family history of poor eyesight, deafness, and ADHD behaviors, we have high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, glycemia issues, arthritis, and who knows what else.  Many of those issues can be directly attributed to poor diet, lack of exercise and excessive weight.

Here's what I've been doing to change that in the past 2 weeks:

I have been tracking my food calories through sparkpeople. When I logged in for the first time since a year ago, I saw that my weight was about 25 pounds lower than I am currently. That was a bit of a disappointing (and yet encouraging!) sight.  My last weight in with sparkpeople was the lowest I have been in probably 8 years.  I got there before, I can again.

Anyway, back to the food tracking.  I cheat and sneak food. A lot.  I think I've got some power and control issues going on there, so clearly I need to work on resolving the inner issues that are surfacing as food consumption.  I told myself that I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I was honest about tracking it.  That in itself has helped me be more aware of what I am eating, and some of the mental work going on behind deciding to eat the 3rd or 4th (or more!) cookies.

I have been exercising (almost) daily. I'm aiming for 5 days a week, 30 minutes each day.  I'm alternating between exercise videos that incorporate strength training (usually Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred) and walking on the treadmill. The past few days, I have been getting up when Jude gets up (around 5:30 or 6) to pack him a lunch (gives me time to get my brain warmed up and my body moving a bit), and then get some exercise in before the children are up and moving.  Gives me some peace and quiet in the morning.

I had been planning to repeat the 5K race I did last year in April, but by the time I got around to registering, registration was close. No good. I will find another race local to me.  There's one in mid-June that I'm looking at, in addition to trying to find one to do in the next few weeks. I know I won't be run ready in a few weeks, but I can manage to walk 5k.

And that's where I am.  My long term goal is to loose about 30 pounds between now and Adelle's first birthday. When I succeed at doing that I will be at my lightest weight in probably 10 years. When I succeed in doing that, I will be at the top side of the "normal" BMI for my body, and I will evaluate and adjust to perhaps drop another 10-15 pounds. Right now, 55 pounds seems like forever away. Even 30 pounds seems nearly unattainable, but if I can average about 1 pound a week, I will make it by Adelle's birthday.

I can do it.  Who else is working at changing their life for Good?