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. 

Shoshana: 5 months

Shosh's 5th month (November 13 - December 13)

The beginning of Shoshana's fifth month of life kicked off with quite the event- a nasty case of croup and a middle of the night trip to the ER. What fun!

Judah had brought home a cold from preschool earlier in the week (which turned into a double ear infection for him, poor dude). He was kind enough to share his cold with the rest of us. Shosh was bit congested and snotty but nothing crazy.

Then in the middle of the night (maybe around 2 am or so) I wake up to non-stop racking coughs coming over the monitors. It took me few drowsy moments to realize that the coughing was coming from Shosh, not Judah as I first suspected. I went into her room to find her doing that oh so recognizable barking cough of croup. Such a drop in the stomach feeling to find your baby struggling to breath.

Judah had croup one time about a year ago, so at least this time we knew what it was and knew what we could do. We bundled her up and took her outside into the cold night air. He sat with her for about 15 minutes and then brought her back in. I would be hard pressed to say if her cough improved at all from that.

We knew we needed to take her in, but weren't sure if we could just manage on our own until morning and bring her in during normal office hours (and avoid the extra cost of a ER trip). I called the advice nurse (or on call doctor? I don't remember know) for our doctor's office. She listened to Shosh breath and told me in no uncertain terms to CALL 911! Of course, this made me freak the fuck out. I mean, c'mon, a medical official is telling me to call 911. Don't wait until morning. Don't drive her to the ER myself. Call 911 NOW. I made Bill call as I was too freaked to do it myself.

Gert, the photo-bombing pug

The paramedics arrived a few minutes later, examined her and confirmed that she had croup (duh). They were nice guys and leveled with us that officially they have to recommend that they take her in the ambulance to the ER, but unofficially we would be fine taking her in on our own. So I took her in to Randall's while Bill stayed home with Judah (who slept through the whole fiasco).

We were seen right away and, as it turned out, by the same dr we saw last year when we brought Judah in during the middle of the night. I understand that the advice nurse had to play it safe and couldn't just say we could bring her in, because if something did happen she would potentially be liable (I guess?), but, still, so lame. Our healthcare system (and insurance too) is such a frustrating joke at times (read: all the time).

Okay, well other than that episode of extreme lameness Shosh's month was pretty much par for the developmental course. She developed a penchant for sleeping on her side.

Occasionally she would end up flipping all the way onto her belly when she attempted to side roll, get stuck, and then cry until someone (ahem, me) would come rescue her. She would also sometimes get her legs or arms stuck in the slats of her crib from all that rolling. Again, she would cry until I would come rescue her.

With all this night time rolling practice she became adept at rolling both directions. What a champ!

Shosh discovered her tongue this month. So many exciting things to discover when you are a baby. Once she figured out what it was and that, in fact, she could control it, she began to stick it out at us. All. The. Time. She definitely has a Monroe tongue. Both her dad and her auntie Em have oddly long tongues, which she seems to have inherited as well. I swear she can touch the tip of her chin with it!

By the end of the month she had progressed from being a side sleeper, to a full on belly sleeper. I guess it runs in the family as that is how both Willie and I prefer to sleep as well.

She got over her croup and was healthy for a week or so, but then got another cold (courtesy of her brother yet again). I was convinced she would end up with croup, but I'm glad to report that it was just a normal cold and never developed into croup.

Who's that I see back there?

When Shosh was a newborn we tried to EC her as often as we could. I found it awkward holding her over a potty since she was so small, but would hold her over an open diaper and cue her to pee in that. We found it tough to do much pottying with her after those first few weeks, because we had to split our attention between her and her brother and could not just sit there holding her for extended amounts of time waiting for her to pee... This month we started to slowly get back into it, as it was easier to sit her on her little potty.

Could it be?

Shoshana's nightly routine continued to consist of a warm washcloth rub and coconut oil. Still no immersion bath for her, not that anyone ever would have been able to guess that in 5+ months our daughter had never been in a tub or had soap on her. She was clean and happy and smelled like a yummy little coconut.

Yep! It is Gert, the photo-bombing pug!

From the first month or so we were pretty sure she was going to have brown eyes like her brother (and me). The inner part of the iris turned brown pretty quickly, but then it just kind of stopped. When Judah was 5 months his eyes had fully turned brown, but Shosh's still have that newborn gray ringing her outer iris. I'm guessing she will wind up with hazel eyes. My dad's eyes are hazel and all of Bill's family has light eyes (either blues or greens). Who knows when that outer color will develop.

The month ended with Shosh waking up every morning at 6 am. She would be up for about an hour. Once I finally would get her back to sleep and crawl back into bed myself, boom, Judah would be up and ready to start his day. Kids and sleep, man. Kids and sleep.