Natalie eats solids!

A big first happened tonight! We had spaghetti for dinner, and while we were eating, I gave Natalie a piece to play with:

After playing with it for a minute, she put the spaghetti in her mouth! So, I gave her a couple of "puffs" - Gerber star-shaped puffs of rice/wheat (strawberry-apple flavored). She has played with them in the past, and spit them out when I put them in her mouth, but never really eaten one. Well, she picked one up, put it in her mouth, and next thing I knew, it was gone! She munched on a couple while we were eating (7-8 total, probably). We're so excited! I was starting to worry she was never going to want to eat solid pieces. Now we can start giving her cut up pieces of our foods (spiral pasta, chicken, cheese, bananas, other fruits, etc), which I'm really happy about. To me, it's a big milestone!

Here are pictures & video from this week:
MONDAY: Natalie was too cute this night. I took lots of pics. These are 4 of my faves!

TUESDAY: my favorite video in a long time. Natalie was just standing there blowing raspberries! Too cute!


WEDNESDAY: Natalie playing with our vertical blinds. I'm looking for an excuse to get rid of them, so I almost hope she does break one! :)

THURSDAY (today): I love this onesie - Natalie is definitely our "growth opportunity"(especially since nothing is growing in the stock market).

We're a little tired today, as Natalie had kind of a rough night last night. She's got a bit of a cold, and woke up repeatedly crying because her nose was so stuffed up. She also didn't want to take her bottle, as she couldn't really breathe out of her nose. The Sudafed we gave her around midnight did seem to help some. So, tonight we gave her the medicine before she went to sleep, and she was able to drink about half a bottle before falling right to sleep. Hopefully tonight will be better sleep for everyone!

Friday & Saturday were fun...Sunday, less so

Friday night was a ton of fun. Evan and I met our friends Eric, Kathy, Will, Johann & Rachel at the Macaroni Grill at the Reston Town Center for dinner. We almost closed the place! Natalie fell asleep after about 8:30pm or so, and before that was very well behaved. So, we all just sat around talking, and next thing we knew, it was 10pm! I love getting to see our friends.

Then, Natalie and I had a great Saturday! We went to Potomac Mills (a HUGE mall with lots of outlet/factory stores off of I-95 in Northern Va) for the day and met up with my sister Carrie! It was a lot of fun. Carrie and I hadn't gotten to hang out for a day like that in a long time, and it gave Aunt Carrie time with her niece. Here they are together:

(and you can admire Carrie's great new haircut!)

We were pretty good about not spending much money, but had fun walking around (as I said, it's huge - we probably walked a good 3 miles or so!)...and of course did some shopping! Natalie got fussy at one point (around lunch), when she didn't want to fall asleep, but eventually she succumbed to the stroller, and fell asleep like this:

While we were gone all day, Evan got to spend lots of time campaigning for the Loudoun Democrats, which was exactly what he had wanted to do. He said it was a pretty successful day going door-to-door!

Then, on Sunday, I unfortunately had to go into work again. This is the last weekend for almost a month that I should have to go in (mostly because we have weekend plans for the next 3 weeks!), and at least it was only one day and not both. After I got home, however, we had a fun day together as a family.

Also, here are some new pictures. This one is Natalie on last Monday (9/15), peeking at me from her pack N play:

Here's Natalie on Wednesday afternoon, after Essie did her hair at daycare:

This is a typical pose for her - mouth open and talking like the rest of us!

Here she is thinking about going into Calla's crate, something we don't really allow

And here she is on Friday (9/19) morning before daycare. You can just barely see her socks, which say "Someone who loves me very much went to the University of Virginia and bought me these socks". Seriously, it says all of that on each sock. It's kind of ridiculous.

Up on my scientific soap box, Part 1

I don't know how many of you may have heard about the debate over Bisphenol-A (BPA) that's currently in the news. Essentially, BPA is a chemical found in certain types of plastics (5 & 7) that is similar in makeup to estrogen, and therefore can attach to the estrogen receptors. This is potentially a problem, particularly during development, as any extra hormone exposure can severely affect later reproductive health. While the FDA still says that the plastics containing BPA are safe, there is a growing amount of scientific evidence that it isn't.

1. Recently, there was this report on NBC nightly news.

2. In a recent study, monkeys exposed to BPA exhibited problems with brain function, particularly in connectivity between neurons. Specifically, when primates were given a daily dose of BPA equal to the current EPA/FDA safe daily limit (i.e. this is the dose the government says is safe for us!), there were severe changes in synapse formation in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of the brain, both regions involved in memory formation and mood. This is the first study to show adverse reactions in the primate brain to BPA, and makes me worry about the possibilities of intake. Also, it was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is a VERY highly esteemed journal. And, on a personal note, the work was done in Neil MacLusky's lab; he's a colleague of my doctoral advisor's and was a co-author on one of my papers. He knows his stuff.

3. A study that just came out in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA; another highly respected journal) reports that higher levels of BPA in human urine are associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver enzyme abnormalities. Again, this is a correlation, not causation, but it's still indicative of a possible problem.

The FDA does have a review panel currently with many experts discussing both sides of the issues (this was mentioned in the NBC news story, I believe). I hope that they will make the appropriate decision and more rigorously regulate BPA in plastics. I don't necessarily think that it should be taken out of plastic completely; as one of the experts on the panel (Dr. Gail Carver) has mentioned, some uses of BPA, such as in children's bicycle helmets, are beneficial and likely have no harmful effect on children. The negative side effects of BPA are more likely to occur when ingested through food.

Natalie has had BPA free bottles almost since birth. I know that some of you thought I was a little crazy for insisting that she use BPA free plastics. However, I knew about this research and thought it was a good idea to limit her exposure. All of her bottles, sippy cups, utensils, plates, are from BPA free plastic. Additionally, I don't give her food from plastic containers, only from jars (which is hard, as Gerber puts all of their interesting food combos in the plastic containers, but those are 7 plastics which contain BPA - I'm planning a letter to Gerber complaining about this).

Evan has even gotten rid of his plastic coffee containers, and is using stainless steel, which is what more people are doing in regard to this scientific evidence. BPA is leached into water, coffee, food etc particularly when heated, so hot coffee would definitely cause it to leach from the plastic. And in men, or developing boys, I would seriously question the effects of exposure to a chemical that attaches to estrogen receptors (which yes, men have), as who knows what effecst that could have on reproductive/prostate health.

I'm not saying all of you have to stop using BPA products. I'm just here to give the info out, not to make judgments. This is simply something that we have chosen to do, as we think it's safest for all of us.

9 month check up

On Monday Natalie had her 9 month check up. She is quite healthy!
Length: 26 inches (~ 70th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs, 13 oz (25th percentile)
Head size: can't remember, but only in 10th percentile!

I don't put much stock in those percentiles; as long as she's healthy I don't really care how she stacks up to other babies. But, what it does tell me is that she's long and lean. Don't we all wish we were? And she has a small head - I say that's why she was able to hold it up so early (before 2 months).

Otherwise, we got a higher dose of ointment to treat a fungal infection that she has - should be gone within a couple of weeks. It doesn't seem to bother her too much, but her skin is all raised and bumpy from it, so I'm glad the doctor figured out what's going on. She already looks MUCH better (the ointment works fast!), so should be out of the woods soon.

Our new carpeting is getting installed at the house as I write this - hopefully I can get pictures up tonight! But as Evan is going out of town for the rest of the week, I'll be single-momming it the next couple of days, so blog posts are more difficult. I'll do my best!

Happy 9 months old!

Again, this was a big week for everyone. I'm going to just go chronologically through the days, as it's easier to remember that way.

Tuesday morning, I woke up as usual, got myself ready, walked the dog, and went out to the car. I noticed glass on the ground next to my car, looked up, and saw this:

Yep, someone broke into my car Monday night. My iPod was stolen, but luckily that was it in terms of theft. Of course, we have the cost of replacing the window, and the knowledge that someone came and did this right outside of our house. The police officer who came said that they had already caught the teenagers who did this (they broke into a number of cars that night), so I'm going to keep an eye on this case. Hopefully they will be punished appropriately. It's very upsetting, but things could've been worse: someone could've been hurt.

In happier news, on Wednesday Natalie turned 9 months old!

Not much new is happening from what I've reported before. Natalie is still crawling EVERYWHERE - she's figured out that there's a pathway to the kitchen, and is fascinated with the stairs (but still can't go up them yet, thank goodness). She can pull herself up to standing on almost anything, including while in her crib. In fact, she's pulling herself up on the couch next to me while I type this!

On Thursday and Friday, I was at a retreat for work in Gettysburg, PA. Everyone attending (including my boss) felt like the talks were horrible, but I got good feedback on the data I presented on my poster and hanging out with my colleagues was fun. Evan reported that he and Natalie had a great time on Thursday night. He's been so wonderful with watching Natalie by himself lately, as I've been in at work almost every weekend since the end of July. Hopefully that will be ending soon, and we can get some quality family time on the weekends!

On Saturday, I again went into work. On the way home, I stopped by a big children's consignment sale. We cleaned up!! I got a ton of clothing for Natalie for this winter (9 outfits for $28!); all name brand (mostly Carter's) and in great shape for being used. We also picked up a couple of new toys, including her new favorite one:

She looks adorable pulling herself up on the little car. As she's still a little unstable when she stands, we've locked the wheels so she doesn't fall over if it moves suddenly. She can't walk and push it yet, but we got it because we know that's what it's for. And for only $11 (retail on something like this is over 3 times that amount), it was a great price!

Some new pictures

There's not much to report since the post on Friday. So, I thought I'd just throw up some pictures from over the weekend.

SATURDAY:
Here I am on the bed with Calla and Natalie in the morning before leaving to go to work:

And here I am on the floor with Natalie after getting home from work:

Here's Natalie hiding next to my chair with Calla:

At the end of the night, Natalie and Evan were getting sleepy. Or maybe just Evan was:

SUNDAY:
When I went in to get Natalie up on Sunday morning, she didn't move. Not a bit. And this is how I found her:

Then Sunday evening, Natalie discovered the stairs. She pulled herself up onto one:

And then just stared up...at Daddy:

One new thing after another

I've heard that during the first year, babies go through more changes than in the next few years combined. That is certainly true for Natalie; in fact, for her, I would say that in her 8th month she's gone through more developmental stages than in the previous 7 combined!

It started with Natalie sitting up on her own. This quickly progressed to crawling, and to starting to try to pull herself up. I thought we'd have a little more time until she pull herself up to standing, but I was wrong: just last night when we put her to bed, she cried because she didn't want to be put down, reached up to the edge of her crib, and pulled herself up to standing! We did lower her crib mattress almost 2 months ago, but I think we're going to lower it as far as it will go, just to make sure she doesn't flip herself out. I think walking won't be far behind. The changes are just amazing.

So when Evan and I picked Natalie up from daycare today, she was not in an outfit I recognized. Turns out that in the mornings, Natalie is the only child at daycare currently (others come in the afternoon after half-day kindergarden). So, Essie (our daycare worker) got bored today, and played dress up with Natalie. This is the outfit she put Natalie in, and gave to us:

Aren't the shoes just adorable? They have little cherries on them that match the outfit. Turns out that Essie and her sister have a whole bunch of baby/toddler clothes that they don't want anymore. So, I get to go through them and take what I want! I think we'll come away with some good stuff for Natalie.

In other news, Calla got a haircut today. There's a new grooming salon I found in Leesburg (Top Dog Grooming), and they did a great job without charging a lot. Here she is posing:

Finally, Natalie is obsessed with Calla. Following her around the room, and of course chasing after her toys (as you saw in the video in the last post). Here she is trying to get Calla's ball today (with Calla looking on expectantly for Natalie to throw it for her!):

A lovely Labor Day weekend

I hope everyone had a good 3 day weekend! For that matter, I hope that most of you were able to get 3 day weekends. Evan did, and had a lot of fun relaxing here at home. Unfortunately, I had to go into work for a few hours Sunday morning, but as going in the whole weekend was a possibility, I'll take just the one day.

I think we had a pretty good weekend. Evan took Natalie door-to-door canvassing for the Democratic Party on Saturday morning, giving them both some great outdoor time and me some time to get house work done, as well as relax a little with the house to myself! Natalie of course had to have her canvassing outfit on:

And just in case she didn't want anyone to recognize her, here's Natalie going "incognito" prior to leaving the house:

Otherwise, we just spent the weekend running some errands, cleaning the house, hanging out, and trying to corral crawling Natalie.
Here's a picture of Evan and Natalie. As much as she's grown so much since she was born, she's still SO tiny!

And here are Natalie and I on the floor:

We enjoyed some family playtime tonight. Here's a great video of Natalie and her latest fun: chasing Calla around the living room, and trying to get Calla's toys!