chompers

Lots of little updates since my last post, so let's get started!

The most exciting news (in my opinion) is that Mae has her first teeth!! She's been so drooly and chewing on everything, so we knew they weren't far away. I could feel the little ridge on her bottom gums for the last few weeks. Then, during her bath last Saturday, I was cleaning her gums with a washcloth and discovered that the first one had just popped through. Its neighbor appeared just two days later. I bought her a little training toothbrush that looks like a banana. It makes me giggle, and she seems to like it.

Also exciting, Dan and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. This is the first year we haven't gone out to dinner on our actual anniversary since our first date 7 years ago! Instead I picked up Mae early from day care so we could cheer on Dan at our company's charity softball tournament. Fortunately, once a month Mae's day care stays open until midnight, so we took advantage of the September "Parents' Night Out" to enjoy a celebratory dinner out about a week belated. Apparently the traditional/modern gift for 4 years is Appliances, so I guess that new air conditioner was our big romantic present!

Last week, Mom, Emily, and Oliver visited and we went to the zoo. Mae actually stayed awake to see some animals this time, though she was more interested in her toes than the new hippo exhibit. Emily and I tried out our new front carriers and both babies seemed to enjoy looking around!

Dan, Mae, and I got a chance to visit Ben and Jen's adorable daughter Anna who was just 10 days old. I got to hold her for a bit, and she even fell asleep for a few minutes! She felt so small even though she's the same size as Mae was at birth. It's fun to see how much Mae has grown compared to a tiny newborn!

We also visited Courtney and John's house for Hank's baptism. He's a few weeks younger than Mae, but he is a giant! He looks like a baby sumo wrestler. He was so cute and very well-behaved for his baptism ceremony.

Lastly, we had an appointment with a GI specialist for Mae. I felt better after leaving his office, even though we didn't get any new recommendations. I'm slowly adding foods like wheat and eggs back to my diet, but will probably keep the dairy and soy out until Mae is weaned. I'm sooooo looking forward to that first pizza. Mae has her 4-month checkup (and shots!) this week, so hopefully that goes okay!

four months of mae

Here she is... 4 months old!

You may notice that she is not wearing her 4 month sticker. That's because this happened:

Each month it gets a little more complicated to take a good photo! Mae was all smiles today... except for the 30 minutes where I was holding the camera. At least we got this nice glamour shot.

And this was the closest thing to a smile. Still pretty cute.

This month, Mae perfected rolling onto her tummy which she does almost immediately when laid down... even in her sleep. Sometimes when I check on her at night, she is laying completely face down with her mouth and nose smashed against the mattress. I think she does this just to freak me out, since there's no way it's comfortable to sleep like that.

She definitely knows the right motions for crawling but doesn't have quite enough arm strength to lift her belly off the ground. She can inchworm across the floor on her face by scrunching up her legs and pushing off. If she's not rolling over, she's either sucking on her toes, chewing on her fingers, or generating enough drool to fill a bath tub. We joke that she is like a snail creating a trail of slime so she can slide across the floor. Are teeth in her near future??

Mae enjoys playing with (and chewing on) this water-filled mat that Grandma bought. Poking it with her hands to move the little floating sea critters helps make tummy time a bit more bearable. She's learning to use her fingers and loves scratching them on different textures like the mesh sides of her Pack 'N Play and my skin while she's nursing (ouch). Sometimes she's downright abusive, smacking me on the jaw or strangling me with my own necklace!

The biggest accomplishment for the month was getting through Mae's first few weeks of daycare. She's still not great with a bottle and will only take it for one lady at the center, Ms. Barb. She's continuing to struggle with gaining weight, is still pretty fussy, and is continuing to show signs of digestive issues. Hopefully month 5 will bring some answers and improvements.

Until then she'll keep trying to jam this whole rattle ball into her mouth!

work it

I survived my first day back at work, and Mae survived her first day of baby school (day care). Many tears were shed throughout the day, but surprisingly none were from me! I stopped by at lunch to feed her and was pleasantly surprised (shocked, actually) that she'd taken 2 ounces from a bottle without much fuss. The afternoon was a different story as I received a call on my way to pick her up that she wouldn't eat after multiple attempts and was quite upset. She calmed down after I arrived and we had a pretty giggly evening together.

I spent my day sorting through my 1200 emails and checking the day care webcam to see if I could figure out which pixels were my baby.

I also successfully located the mother's room in my building. However, my biggest success of the day was definitely being able to button my pre-pregnancy work pants. Hooray! Another highlight was finding this cute little note tucked into my lunch box. (I think she had some help from her daddy.)

My last few weeks at home were somehow both excessively busy and impossibly slow. The weekday hours dragged on and on as I carried screaming Mae around the house, but somehow 16 weeks of maternity leave just flew by. Four weeks ago I couldn't have imagined sending Mae to day care, and now I am actually looking forward to a bit of grown-up time.

We crammed a lot into the days since our vacation. We bought a membership to the zoo and visited the new hippo exhibit and the baby giraffe. We went to a baby shower for Ben and Jen that almost turned into a birthday party (but Jen was able to keep that baby cookin' a bit longer). In family news, Kevin and Kelsey celebrated their 21st birthdays. Even though Kevin's birthday breakfast was interrupted by a seizure and a brief trip to the emergency room, he recovered quickly enough to visit Kelsey at college for their birthday dinner. What a trooper!

Over Labor Day weekend, Mae got her first taste of college football. Fortunately since Penn State and Notre Dame played on different days, Dan and I didn't have to fight over which clothes she would wear. We received a couple ND outfits at my shower, and Aunt Colleen sent the little PSU onesies and leggings just in time for football season!!

We are still trying to resolve Mae's weight gain issues and I've started a total elimination diet, eating mostly chicken, potatoes, rice, apples, pears, and squash. Oh, and I added chocolate after a week of suffering without. Dan has been eating very boring dinners in solidarity with me. Then, I got this silly text message from him during his lunch break at work one day last week:

*Excited to go out for lunch and get some variety of food*
*Goes to Wendy's and gets usual order*
*While eating, realizes usual order is basically chicken and potatoes*
*Dies of shame*

We'll see if the diet makes any noticeable difference. Her weight gain does seem to be picking up, and her feeds have definitely gotten longer and more relaxed. We are keeping our fingers crossed for another good checkup in a few weeks!