Beautiful Blessings!

(Not the best pic of me... but what a cute husband and baby!)

I was inspired to start this blog by my friend, Jenn, who faithfully blogged every week the first year of her son’s life as a gift to him and their family. I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to keep up that pace, but committed to a once a month update. Sadly I lost track of time and here we are at month six. However I am recommitting myself to this blog. So here we go!

Sophia has been doing great! Not too long after our last update Sophia found her thumb and her “blankie”. “Blankie” is a beautiful soft white afghan that my cousin, Peggy knitted for her. This was the beginning of “self-soothing” and a whole new side of Sophia. She has really developed a part of her personality that is laid back, sweet and overall just a happy kid. My mom was remarking the other day how funny it is that two “Type A” personalities were blessed with such a laid back child. You can even observe this in her daycare class around the other babies. Her teachers say she is the happiest baby there.

I guess this can bring us to the update on working mom and daycare. I was so very torn with the decision to go back to work. I knew it was going to have to happen, but really did not expect it to have to be so soon. Fortunately it has worked out better than I could have ever anticipated. Sophia is doing great at “school” and my supervisor is very understanding and respectful of the importance of families. This in turn really motivates me at work. I am super happy to be back. The only downfall is that poor little Sophia has had to jump start her immune system. We have had several colds and viruses go through the house. There is nothing that makes a parent feel more helpless than watching an infant struggle to breathe! They really should be born with the ability to blow their noses.

Food! Sophia has not jumped on the solid foods band wagon quite how I had expected. We started cereals about a month ago and she just barely started eating the rice. She did really good the first week and then decided that she was not into it anymore. We would put it on her tongue and she would just open her mouth and let it sit on her tongue. She sort of liked the oatmeal, but unfortunately she is intolerant to oats. This intolerance manifests itself with projectile vomiting about two hours later. The last episode happened all over Jeremy at Sunday dinner with my family. Needless to say, we now know that Mommy will be the better one to handle those situations with calm compassion. We are moving on to fruits and vegetables now. Peaches have not been a great hit. However – the vanilla custard from Culver’s was a big hit! (I know…. Bad, bad parents we are.)

Not a mover and a shaker. Sophia is such a laid back girl that she has not felt the need to rush her milestones. She was able to rollover both ways at about 4 ½ months, but really didn’t feel like making the effort until recently. She now rolls from back to belly all the time, but gets frustrated and yells rather than rolling back the other way. She is very close to sitting up on her own and loves to bounce. Whether in the bouncy chair or on your leg doing “giddy-up”, she enjoys to jostle around. She has learned to communicate with us vocally. She growls in what we have started to refer to as “growly bear” when she is tired or hungry. And last weekend she delighted herself in the sound of her own voice and basically just yelled the entire weekend. This resulted in a case of laryngitis and she ended up losing her voice for 3 days and had a small cough.

Mom and Dad – We continue to be amazed by our beautiful girl. She has become not just another member of our family, but an inspiration to us. I have learned things about myself that I never would have known. She inspires me to appreciate everyday and marvel in the good fortune that our family has. That being said, mom and dad still experience times of regression. I find myself very intolerant and needing to control the flow of everything. (I think part of this is a defense mechanism on my part to avoid dealing with the fears and uncertainty of failure.) It has been difficult for me to delegate and even more difficult for me to deal with deviations from responsibilities I ask for help with. I won’t speak for Jeremy, but I would imagine it is hard for him to deal with me at times. Although work is going really well I often find myself extremely exhausted. Having been up with a sick baby since three am, working a full day and then having to come home and manage a household. In my effort to never impress upon Sophia that she is a burden, I tend to lay a lot of it out for Jeremy to take.

We are so excited for the next 6 months. At times I can’t wait to see her start moving around and expressing herself, and then I sit back and am sad to see her progress. She no longer wants to be rocked to sleep, I already have 3 boxes of clothes she has outgrown and I will really miss our time in the mornings with her chair. She comes into the bathroom with me and hangs out in her chair while I get ready for work. I am really not sure what I am going to do when she can crawl out of her chair!

In a couple of weeks Sophia will be going in for surgery to remove the skin tags. It really is a simple out-patient procedure, but I am distressed all the same. I love her just the way she is and see a beautiful girl. But I know kids will be curious and I do want her to feel self conscious. We have had more than a few kids (seems like ages 6-8 are the most curious) comment. Not in a malicious way, but just curious because it is different. I am very grateful that all we have to deal with is cosmetic and that we have been able to prepare our family with insurance to cover the cost. So many families deal with much more pain and true tragedy. I thank God everyday for our good fortune.

With that I will end this very long posting! We express our gratitude and love to all our friends and family.