Mobility

Anna is getting around these days. She's not quite crawling just yet but I don't think it will be too long before she's rocking on all fours. Both my kids are late crawlers. I think Meredith crawled at 9.5 months. Anna is 8 months old now so I think she's going to be moving in the very near future. Her latest trick is reaching for everything. She almost gets herself onto all fours when she does this but isn't quite there yet. But she rolls around on the floor everywhere! I'm dreading getting out the gates. I'm glad she is a late mover.

She seems to be following in Meredith's footsteps with a lot of things developmentally so I'm predicting she will pop a tooth in the next couple of weeks. I swear I can see them under her gum (in the rare opportunity she will let me look). Mer got her first tooth at 8.5 months.

PLOP!

More about spring

Yes, more about Spring. I am ridiculously excited to see my two goldfinch friends show up again this year!!!!! I wish I had more of a yard and trees to put more bird feeders.

My latest attempt to attract birds is this hummingbird feeder that I placed out front. It may even be too early but these temperatures make me think it's June. I really hope I can get one or two. But I can't plant flowers so I'm not sure if this alone will lure them. I may have to put a pot of flowers in the rock bed.

And yes, I have ghetto blinds. The cat did that.

Another feeding update

After almost two long months of trying to get Anna to eat baby food, I've decided I'm giving up. It's just not worth it anymore. We're going to skip baby food and go right to table food. She just refuses to eat anything I give her on a spoon - including stuff like pudding. But she seems to like to explore and pick up and eat finger foods like puffs, rice rusks, pasta, toast, etc. I'm going to get out the mesh feeders and the food grinder. I might try some of those squeeze packets of baby food though and see if she likes that. I'm actually kind of thrilled at the thought of not having to do baby food. But I'm not thrilled at the thought of coming up with baby friendly ideas of foods to eat.

Now, I have to go to Target and bring back about 20 containers of baby food that I had bought on sale. Ugh. I'm going to feel like a moron brining back a heaping bag of baby food.

Here she is eating spaghetti. She likes it:-)

Spring!

This is one of my favorite times of the year - when it starts to feel warmer out and Spring arrives. I can't believe this weather though. This has been the best winter ever. It's not often you can say it's 79 degrees when it's still winter. And this is the tree across the street. It has leaves popping out on St. Patricks Day.

This time of year also means home improvements. Sometimes I hate owning a house. Our windows are going bad (along with everyone else's in the neighborhood). Not sure what we're going to do about that but it makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. The builder just used cheap, shoddy, windows. Our neighbor has it much worse but it's probably only a matter of time before we're there too.

One a simpler note, we put in a new kitchen faucet. Our house came with the cheapest of the cheap (and ugliest of the ugly) faucets. This is the last faucet to be replaced and what was supposed to be simple turned into a two day project for Greg. First, the faucet was on so tight that Greg had to saw it off to get some leverage. Then, our plumbing under the sink was done so cheaply that the old hoses underneath did not even screw into the new faucet (they clamped I think) so we had to get some special adapters. But we finally got it done.

Here's Greg in action:

And here's the new faucet.

Our next project is hardware for the kitchen cabinets. I thought it was time for that after 9 years. I'm very excited about it and I'll put up pictures of it whenever Greg decides to tackle that project.

This weekend was the Just Between Friends consignment sale that I participated in. From what I understand, they had the best sale to date. They had over 100 more consigners this spring than they had this fall. And traffic at the sale was outstanding.

I brought in 112 items to sell and I only brought home 18 items! I sold almost all my maternity clothes too. I'm so happy. See in the picture below? That's all I had to bring home! I do think this great weather inspired people to buy for spring/summer so that was good. I grossed about $415 so after they take their cut, I'll be getting about $300 or so.

Sick Baby

I was hoping that I would make it through this winter season without a sick baby (beyond a cold) but it happened sooner rather than later. Anna was sick last week with a cold. After a couple days, she developed croup so we brought her in to the doctor. Her left ear was infected so she started on amoxicillin. Antibiotics are always dreadful in infants because they typically cause diarrhea and quite frankly, it's miserable changing all those diapers and seeing a red, rashy bum. Not to mention that this is what I think is the dreaded start of ongoing ear infections. I think back to Meredith who had infection after infection that wouldn't go away until she got tubes.

Anyhow, the antibiotics have given her colitis. Poor girl is having the worst time with poops and has had all sorts of bloody diarrhea so we went back to the doctor today. Her left ear was not infected anymore but now her right ear is. We have to stop the antibiotics because they are making her sick. We can't try another kind like augmentin because it is even worse on your body so now she has to battle this other ear infection on her own so her intestines can get better.

Poor girl - she is just a train wreck right now. And she is so congested on top of things. Her nose will not stop running. I just hope she gets better soon. If she is not improving by Monday, we have to start doing stool samples. Blech.