Branstad Family: From String Bean to Jelly Bean to Eating Green Beans

I think it's safe to say that a lot has changed for Alaina since my last update about her, some 5 MONTHS ago. Life just keeps getting in the way of my blog writing, which is strange since I'm writing about life and all. Anyways, at two months Alaina's body stats kind of resembled a string bean - long and skinny. That's totally not the case anymore. She had the following measurements at her six month check up:

Length: 25 in, 14th percentile
Weight: 15.6 lbs, 39th percentile
Head size: 17 in.; 76 percentile

Since Easter's right around the corner I'd say she's more of a jelly bean than a string bean at this point...with a huge head, heehee. Also, have you seen her thighs? I recently had her "six month" pictures taken and Katie, the photographer, and I were laughing at her thigh rolls and her baby badonkadonk. Seriously, she has one - and it's adorable. 7 months later, I guess I can finally let go and stop worrying that she's not getting enough to eat. Psh...who am I kidding? Worrying is what moms do best!

Lainey has been changing so quickly. It's crazy how she's gone from baby blob to a ball of energy. All Lainey wants to do is move - rolling, bouncing, reaching, arching, twisting, kicking, pushing, pulling (especially mommy's hair), grabbing, gnawing, and scooting. She doesn't particularly like being on her back. Getting her to lie back in her car seat to strap her in has become a bit of a struggle. If she's on her back on the floor she rolls over onto her tummy and does a push up with her arms. In this position she can scoot backwards or to the side a little bit. I've also seen her try to bring her knees up, but she can't support herself that way quite yet. I have a feeling crawling isn't far off. Lainey loves sitting up and playing with her toys. The days of laying her under her play gym are over. Now she sits along side of it and pulls on the poles and animals. Or she sits in the middle of her blanket and samples all her little stuffed animals and teethers. She's pretty stable but we usually have a boppy around just in case. Every once in a while she'll tip backward or take a little nose dive but she doesn't seem to mind. In fact, I think she might do it on purpose. She's also found if she bounces on her bum a little she can scoot forward toward another interesting toy. She also loves being pulled into a standing position, bouncing in her jumperoo, and playing with toys in her high chair.

Speaking of the high chair, Lainey has started solid food. The weekend after her six month check up we introduced oatmeal for the first time. We think she liked it? Well, at least she didn't cry like she did when we gave her green beans a couple weeks later. She. Hated. Them. Oddly, the next day she couldn't get enough and was licking them off her tray. Needless to say, the transition into solids foods has been an adventure. On the weekdays she gets three 4.5 oz bottles while she's at daycare and one nursing session in the morning and two at night at home. We also now do some cereal and a veggie for supper. On the weekends it's 5-6 nursing sessions, cereal and veggie for supper, and we add in cereal for breakfast too. We'll probably have daycare start giving her breakfast soon and start fruits. We really don't know what we're doing when it comes to this solid food stuff (When should she have the veggies and fruits? How much? How often? Should we mix them together? The questions between John & I never end), but she seems to be doing ok so we must be doing something right.

Lainey continues to generally sleep well. She slept in the rock 'n play sleeper until about 4.5 months when she was getting pretty big for it. I highly recommend the rock 'n play. Lainey started sleeping through the night at about 2.5 months and I think that thing had something to do with it. Not that we haven't had some rough patches here and there. Right around six months she started waking a couple times in the middle of the night, crying and on her tummy in a push up position. The only thing that would calm her down was for one of us to pick her up and hold her in the chair until she fell asleep, usually within minutes. Because she would sense us putting her back in her crib, we would usually end up falling asleep in the chair with her so it wasn't resulting in very high-quality sleep for us. We needed to come up with a solution. From what I had previously read about baby sleep, I suspected nursing and rocking her right before bed and putting her down when she's already out like a light might have something to do with it; but it hadn't caused any problems up until this point. After a little Googling (I'm a frequent visitor of the great trifecta: BabyCenter, WebMD, and Mayo Clinic) we changed up her bedtime routine a little so I finish nursing her and then dad puts her in the sleep sack. That rouses her a little and then I'm able to say goodnight to her and lay her down in the crib while she's still awake. This way, she learns to put herself to sleep. Either she was just going through a phase or that was the ticket because her sleep has improved dramatically since making that change. Who knows? So we're good for now, but I'm sure something else with throw it off at some point. Even though we put her down on her back, we've found that Lainey definitely prefers sleeping on her side or tummy now.

Lainey's personality is really starting to show lately. She is so happy and playful. When she smiles she uses her whole face. She's very observant. She loves watching the other babies at daycare. She's also very curious. At home she's always interested in what John and I are doing, holding, eating, or saying. She reaches for anything that catches her eye. She's been baby babbling more and more. We hear lots of consonant sounds like "a-da", "mmba", "ka" and combinations of those along with screeches, grunts, raspberries, and giggles.

Well, I covered playing, eating, and sleeping. That pretty much sums up the life of Alaina. I am just loving all the new changes even though they happen so quickly and I constantly feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I can't believe she's over 7 months old. Where has the time gone?!!? It's been fun, challenging, overwhelming, fascinating, frightening, amazing, difficult, and rewarding all at the same time.

And now, what you're really here for (let's be honest): Some fun pictures of Alaina the past few months! Commentary by Alaina, herself, of course!!

No, really...this is comfy.

Tackling Dolly so I can eat her!

Somebody change my diaper quick! I think Mom had Chipotle!

Go Twins!

Modeling my new dress

GREEN BEANS ARE AWFUL!!

(the next day) What do you mean there's no more green beans?

I don't think you're ready for this jelly!

I love smiling! Smiling's my favorite.

Mommy says this is probably not the intended use of this toy. Clearly, she knows NOTHING.

Enjoying a night out for supper for about 10 minutes before having an Epic Meltdown. This resulted in me getting to go home to play with my toys while mom and dad ate takeout.