Eating rice! And a few other milestones.

It's been over a month since my last post. Whoops! Going back to work has kicked my butt. And a LOT has happened, so it's overwhelming to think about the things I missed posting about. But I am just going to move ahead, and then tell some stories from the past month afterwards.

My BIG GIRL got a clean bill of health at her 4-month appointment. She's 25 1/4" long and 16 lbs. 11 oz. I forget her head circumference off-hand. But she's 90th percentile all around. She's SO big!!

In addition to getting up to date on her vaccines, we talked to the doctor about her eating. The doctor was good with us starting miss J-bird on rice cereal. Since J is not really big on the frequent pooping, and this can back her up, the doctor also recommended giving her a bit of prune apple juice. She said to either mix it with water and give it to her in a bottle, or make the rice cereal with it. So that is two big girl foods my baby gets to have.

This was not something I was incredibly ready for! In fact, I didn't even have it in me to register for a high chair or any feeding supplies outside of a baby food processor and a silicone place mat.

So off to Buy Buy Baby we went, and picked up a high chair. They only seemed to have the low-end (no adjustments, and a fabric instead of wipe-able pad) and high-end models (nearly $300 with leather seats!) in stock. But they did have the floor models of the mid-grade ones, which they said we could purchase at a 10% discount. When I said I would just go to Babies R Us and go buy a new one in the box, they upped the ante to 20% discount (score!). So we picked it up. Along with a big ole box of Gerber rice and prune apple juice.

I didn't really think that Jocelyn would actually get to the eating part tonight. I figured we might get as far as putting her into the seat, and that after 10 minutes she would be miserable in it. Instead she was fine. Then I thought I would just give her a blob of the cereal to play with on her tray and see what she did with it. When she didn't notice it, I thought I would try to get some on the spoon. Well, the first bite went mostly on her bib. The second bite was about 50% in her mouth. But by the third or fourth bite she was getting pretty good at it! After a few bites she was even diving for the spoon, and at one point she took my hand and directed the spoon toward her mouth (I guess I wasn't moving fast enough for her!). It was TOO cute! We have a few pictures and we got it on video. That will definitely be one for the memory box!

Of course, now Jocelyn has STINKY farts! We haven't even given her the juice yet (I opted to mix the cereal with water, as I didn't want to waste breast milk in case she didn't want to eat it, and I didn't want to make it too sweet, thus spoiling her for non-sweet cereal).

In addition to her very large size, her turning four months old, and her starting to eat solid foods, Jocelyn has been up to some pretty cool stuff. At the end of October (maybe October 27 or so?) she rolled over on a flat surface for the first time (recall that she has been rolling in her inclined bed for a while now). Sadly, Hubby-poo and I were at work when it happened, but Grandma sent a picture via text message (and took a picture with the still camera). It took a few days for her to do it again. When she did do it again, we all missed it! We were all sitting on the floor, around her blanket, when Hubby-poo put her down on her back. The next thing we knew, she was on her belly! It took no time! We all felt like terrible parents / grandparents for missing it. But we flipped her back onto her back and, sure enough, she did it again. She hasn't done it much since, but she has proven her point.

On this past Thursday night (11/11), Jocelyn proved that she could scoot wherever she wants to go. We put her on her blanket, and not too far away, but at a 90 degree angle and about a foot away, was her toy bar. Hubby-poo and I were just sort of talking about our days, and noticed that J-money was moving around a whole lot. The next thing we knew she was under her toy bar and playing with her hanging toys! She knew exactly what she wanted to do and went right for it. She's SO flippin' impressive!

Some 4 1/2 weeks ago I went back to work. That was hard. It was hard emotionally, of course, but I expected that. What I didn't expect was how hard it would be both physically and mentally. I don't get nearly enough sleep. That is why I haven't been blogging. Jocelyn still goes to bed WAY too late. And since I need to get ready, feed her and also pump (most mornings), I have to wake up way too early. I am grateful that she's not going to day care, but if she was she might fall into a regular bedtime pattern. As it is, grandma is taking care of her in our own home, so if J wants to go back to sleep after her morning meal, she can. It's just not a problem. And then I need to pump twice per day, which sometimes takes 15 minutes a session, and sometimes it takes an hour. So I am physically and mentally drained. I won't talk more about it here, though, because this is for Jocelyn. I will say that I miss her all day, and I really like missing her. Because when I get to see her at the end of the day, well, it just makes my day.

What else is Jocelyn doing? She has pretty much stopped singing (which makes me sad). She took a brief hiatus from talking (but she does it again). She's trying REALLY hard to sit up. I mean REALLY hard. She's going to get there soon, I just know it. She can 'walk' if you hold her (she's wobbly as a baby giraffe, which is SO freakin' cute). Oh, and she laughs! Her laugh is my favorite sound in the whole world (I might even like it better than her grunt, which she has pretty much stopped doing, which makes me really sad).

She started sleeping through the night. And then she stopped again. The past week and a half have been a bear - she likes to wake up every 2 or so hours, and only sleep on us. She also started wanting to only sleep in arms, and would wake up in tears the second she was put down in her crib. But she's asleep now (knock on wood!), and with having had rice for dinner maybe she'll sleep for a good chunk of the night. If she doesn't go back to her 'good' (used loosely) sleep habits, we are going to have to start sleep-training. I picked up the Baby Whisperer book, and may give that a whirl. It's not as mean as the cry-it-out. Upon first glance, it's basically Baby Wise without the crying. We plan to do that over Thanksgiving, in case it's hard and we stay up really late with it, at least it will mean we don't need to wake up too early.

Anyway, I am rambling. I doubt anybody is going to take the time to read all of this (I barely took the time to write it).