Shoshana 7 months

Shosh turned 7 months old on February 13th, 2014.

Here are the things that happened in her life in the month leading up to that:

The first thing is a sad bit of news. On January 19th, Gert, our pug, went to go live with some friends of ours. It was a tough decision for us to make, but she had been slowly and progressively getting worse with the kids. It got to the point where she bit Judah and broke the skin. She just slowly became less and see tolerant of the them and she even started to snap at Shosh when she would accidentally hit her with her foot. It was all very sad. We have had her since she was a puppy, but we felt that keeping her would just make her even more resentful/aggressive towards kids and it just wasn't what was best for Gert or for us. Luckily, we have super awesome friends who LOVE animals, do not have any kids, and just so happened to have a pug on their pet wish list. We feel like we gave Gertie a good life and now have given her a better life by having her live with Joy and Brad (Thanks, guys!). She is very happy there. She gets a lot more attention (from grown ups, not toddlers trying to pick her up or play with her by pulling her leg). She has made friends with their dog, who has a lot more energy and loves to play (unlike our lump of a saint bernard). There are also 3 cats that she is slowly winning over. I hear two of them will even sit on the couch near her. We definitely miss her, but know that it was the right decision.

I was originally planning on making the bit about Gert into its own post, but I have yet to go through and pull out a bunch of photos of her through the years, so I figure I better just include it in here or I who knows when I will get around to it.

Anyway, after that bit of sadness, on with more normal baby type stuffs.

Shosh had some super fun sleeping habits this month! Except not at all.

She definitely had a sleep regression going on. Or maybe she was having a growth spurt? Or maybe sleep regression because of growth spurt? Who knows. Babies are hard to figure out sometimes.

She was waking up every one and half to three hours... and then nursing for 30 plus minutes. No long chunks of sleep for her... or me.

She also went through a stint of being awake from anywhere from two to four hours straight in the middle of the night. So much fun! She wasn't super colicky or upset, just AWAKE. So very awake. She wanted to just hang out and be held and look around her dark room and, you know, maybe play with your face and pull your hair. FUN.

This month she was able to sit on her own for longer chunks and even play with toys by herself, which is a very cute and handy development.

She went on her first hike this month to Latourelle Falls, which I wrote a short blog post about on my photography business website. She was not into it. She either cried or nursed while I had her in the front carrier (a beco gemini, which I highly recommend, by the way). We turned back early because she was being such a pill, which turned out to be a good thing anyway since the trail was iced over and pretty treacherous if we had continued on.

We were a better about having her use her potty this month. She would go a couple of times a day, usually we had the best luck after nursing or napping.

She now takes baths with Judah every night. It has certainly made the bedtime routine easier now that they can do that together.

She was not really into eating real food. We are not sure what about it she doesn't find appealing: the flavor? The texture? All we do know is that girl is not a fan of avocados! Or bananas. Or any other food we put in front of her. She will always try what we gave her. After a couple of times of trying to get it into her mouth she eventually would make contact, but then spit it right back out and just make the most disgusted face.

Snow. It happened. It was lame. She was sick. Judah was sick. They ended up with ear infections. Willie and I had colds. We all were sick. I blogged about it here.

So there you have it. January/February was not the most awesome time at our house. We had to give away our pug, there was very little sleeping going on, and everyone was sick at one point or another. Yeesh, no wonder I wasn't feeling super pumped about writing this entry.

On the plus side, Shosh is adorable and generally a very cheerful and easy baby. And she is cute, strike that, she is freaking adorable. I sure do love her so. She is doted on by everyone in the house (well except the cats and the fish, but I'm not counting them).

Shoshana at 6 months

I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty uninspired to write. It is so tempting just to put up a set of photos and call it good, but I know I will regret not having written anything when I look back on this later.

So, I will keep the notes on Shosh at 6 months brief (and hopefully I won't kick myself later for not adding in more details). Shosh turned 6 months on 1/13/14.

She is a big fan of making the "bbbbbb" sound.

She has discovered how to YELL. And she does it. Often. Just for fun. It is noticeably different than when she is upset and crying. It is pretty funny... see also: loud.

I guess she was really into sounds this month, because my third note I made was she makes the "bwa-bwa-bwa" sound on repeat.

She went through a not so fun phase of waking up before 7am.

She must have gained some core strength/balance because this month she was able to sit for longer periods of time.

Shoshana became interested in toys.

Shosh also became very interested in grabbing. She grabs all the things: hair, mouth, face, clothing, her feet...

Apparently she gained a sense of humor this month because she started giggling at everything. She finds Judah to be especially hilarious. I feel like she is easier to get to giggle than Judah was as a baby. Bill was always good at getting Judah to giggle, but I had a tougher time, with Shosh it is musch easier. Maybe we have just improved our comedic timing for babies.

Shoshi started wearing her 9 months clothes.

We started having a dedicated book reading time before bed (Goodnight Moon). She gets lots of random book time when we read with Judah throughout the day, but now we are working on incorporating reading into her bedtime routine. She is trying to incorporate book eating.

Shosh had her very first real bath this month, with Judah no less! It took 6 months, but our baby has now officially been in water and cleaned with soap. She still gets coconut oiled after bath time though.

When on her stomach she can fully extend her arms to push herself up, like cobra pose. Her butt is still down though. We still have awhile until she will be crawling (phew!).

We wait until Shosh was 6 months to introduce food. We follow baby led weaning, so no mushy baby food for her. The evening of the 13th we gave her avocado slices to try. She was pretty unimpressed with them. She preferred just sucking on her fingers. When she actually managed to get the avocado in her mouth she looked utterly disgusted and spat it back out. Silly baby.

*the black and white images should not have a color cast to them. Something about blogger's import formula messed them up (and made me sad/frustrated). I've been trying to fix them, but I can't seem to figure it out. I guess you just have to trust me when I say that the normal version isn't freaking sepia toned or blue toned. True black and white all the way!!*

------UPDATE-----

I figured out the issue with the images. It has to do with blogger being linked to gmail... which links to google+. Even though I never made an actual google+ profile for the email address linked with this account, google did. And in that profile they automatically selected "auto enhance" to all images uploaded onto blogger. Awesome. Except,  NOT AT ALL. To fix it I had to create a google+ profile and go in and turn off auto enhance under the settings. Ridiculous. 

Snow

I have a couple of posts that should come before this one (Shosh at 6 months, and one on Gert), but I don't have the photos prepped for them yet. Instead, let me tell you about this one time that it snowed. I'm sure you had noooo idea that it snowed in Portland the other week. It wasn't on the news or anything. And they definitely didn't call it Snowmageddon or Snowpocalypse or anything silly like that. Side eye to Portland news and media outlets. Major side eye.

A few days before the snow hit, Judah came down with a nasty cold that his friends from school had shared with him (and everyone else). He had already missed one day of school from it when the storm hit. He then ended up missing a week more. He was also nice enough to share his cold with Shosh... and then Bill and I as well. So nice of him!

Turned out the cold developed into ear infections for both kids (in both ears). Between sick kids, sick parents, severe lack of sleep (due to aforementioned sick kids), and being house bound it was a pretty miserable week. The kids were super needy and grouchy. Bill and I were super tired (and therefore grouchy) and we were all together. In the house. For a very long time.

These photos are from the only time the kids even went out into the snow... and they only lasted about 30 minutes or so. They definitely look a bit pathetic and sickly in these photos, even if they were having a good time.

We left our sleds in Tacoma, so Bill is pushing Judah around in Ralphie's water dish instead.

There was one member of our house who loved the snow though: Ralph. That guy is all about it! It turns him into a puppy. He runs (and trust when I say he NEVER runs) and plays and fetches and is just generally adorable and snow dog-errific.

I definitely look forward to future snow days (hopefully not this year, though) when the kids are A) not sick and B) able to enjoy being outside.

I'm happy to report that everyone is pretty much healthy again. Judah finished the last of his antibiotics for his ear infections this evening, but Shosh still has a few more days left of hers.