Quick highlights. Typing with eyes closed because it's past my bedtime.
Last week, we all made it through my first trip away from Olivia. Kevin was Mt. Mom all week and while fighting a terrible cold, took care of getting Olivia to daycare, getting himself to work, working, picking up Olivia from daycare, washing her, bedtime routine, washing bottles, then finally making sure Olivia had food and bottles for the next day and getting to bed. Gold Star dad! Olivia remained healthy - another Gold Star! I managed to continue pumping fairly regularly and brought home an ice chest of milk and melted ice. The trip was very useful and dramatically improved relationships with folks out East. One unique moment was driving from Danbury, CT to Marlboro, MA I was pumping with the hand pump... no one saw though. Not the safest, I'll admit it. I didn't have much choice though. Long story.
We had a few attempted photo sessions i the beautiful mustard fields that are abloom with yellow flowers. I desperately wanted to take pregnancy photos in those same fields but we never got to it before the flowers were fading. This year, we have the fancy camera and I bought a cheap tripod - but it does the trick! The bummer though was that Olivia is sick all the time from daycare so she wasn't in the best of spirits when we tried the first time as a whole family. We never even got a single photo of all three of us. Maybe we'll try again when my parents are here this weekend. However, the series of photos are pretty funny, if you're aware of all the attempted Bellenger family portraits through the years as my sisters and I grew up. They were usually traumatic experiences - the worst was in teh grasses of the dunes on Cape Cod as we were eaten alive by those horrible green horse flies! Needless to say, those photos also turned out poorly.
I tried one more time to take photos of Olivia in the adjacent field for her 8 month photo shoot (a week late) because it was still gorgeous. Those turned out a little better, but it was Olivia's bed time so mostly sleepy face and no dad to help make her smile. It was impressive though, I snapped all those photos in 9 minute and then packed up, took Olivia home, bathed her, nursed her and got out the door to my massage appointment at 7pm. I needed that! Poor Kevin didn't join us for the 8 month photo shoot because he was home with a 24 hours stomach bug... again. Saturday night was awful for the poor guy. Sunday wasn't much better. Then he was on a plane at 0600 Monday morning for work.
And then I got it ... Monday afternoon. Thank goodness for Karen coming over to help out with Olivia while I was stuck in the bathroom for most of the evening, or laid out on the couch. I hope I didn't spread the love to her again. Fortunately, I had it about 1/5th as bad as Kevin. Tuesday around lunchtime as I dropped off Olivia, I found out that 3 other sets of parents had the bug, and at least one of Olivia's daycare buddies - Lorelai, the other one who is there around 6:40 am daily. Just tonight, I heard from new mommy Shonna from my lactation circle, that her whole family has it at the same time - and Kailani will vomit in her sleep and then roll around in it in the crib - ugh! Crazy year for stomach bugs around here! Is this what they mean by it takes a village to raise a child - because everyone gets sick and has to cover for one another?
Lately I've been thinking more about weaning Olivia. I love nursing her, but my supply seems to be dropping and we are past the 6 month mark... but on the other hand, it makes me kinda sad to think about ending the nursing since it's such a nice bonding time for us. It helps make up for the fact that Olivia is so so happy to see Cinnamon and mostly happy to see me.
Oh, Olivia 'dances' to music and bangs her little bongos when I put on tunes - very cute. She really doesn't like it when she's left alone in a room, and specifically is unhappy when I leave her sight (same for Cinnamon, which is cute). She's starting to have a little stranger anxiety, so they told me today. I guess a new teacher was in the room and Olivia just watched her and howled. When Cinnamon went over to Olivia and held her to calm the little one down, she stopped crying but wouldn't stop watching the new teacher. Pretty funny.
Olivia is a little behind in locomotion, but her fine motor skills seem pretty good to me. She isn't crawling or really rolling over yet, but she has a ton of strength. I think shes just lazy. We have to do more tummy time with her and that should push things along. She's sitting up on her own really well now. I think that some of the delay is because she's been sick so often that it's hard to do anything other than recover from not feeling well. So she has less time to practice. Olivia seems MUCH longer too - I think she had a growth spurt. We'll have to measure her length this weekend with gma and gpa Bellenger around - and her weight.
Olivia like her high chair now and be-bops around in it. It's like she's in the jumperoo all the time. Adorable. But scary when she's eating chunks of things. I worry she'll choke. Olivia's eating is pretty picky, though she likes to self-feed and will guide a spoon into her mouth as long as you're holding it (keeping it from flying across the room). She loves the teething biscuits, and likes cauliflower florets. Tomorrow I'm sending split pea soup, whole green beans, broccoli florets, and pepper strips. There will be one bottle of formula because of my supply dip. Hm, I should have defrosted a thing of breastmilk. Well, we'll do that later.
Oh, I fit into pre-pregnancy clothes - which vastly expands my wardrobe these days. Love it. Pants are still tight, but it's something! I've been receiving compliments on the clothes, which is also nice. Still need more exercise though. I hope that will come if I get away from breastfeeding and pumping, but I don't know. It's still so tough to get my hours in.
Hm, I'm sitting in bed listening to Kevin's sleep apnea - it's scary to hear him stop breathing for awhile. Don't like it. Hopefully he'll go to the doctor about it some day soon. Scary stuff.
OH, been working on taxes. That's just depressing.
On that note, time for bed. I'll have to add photos to this one a little later. Especially a photo of Olivia in the flowers!
Can't wait for Mom an dad to arrive tomorrow evening. That will be fun!
Oh, and I'm pretty convinced I have an issue digesting lactose... a stinky issue. :) lolz.
Kate,
bed
time.
Now!
Yesterday was Olivia's 9-month day, and today was her doctor appointment. The littlest sweetheart is growing just fine. She weighs 16 lbs 4 ozs (18th %ile I think), is 28 in (26th %ile I think), and her head is still large - 97th %ile! She still loves to clap and this evening was spinning around on her tummy to get to different toys. 
Olivia is eating very well - she LOVES chicken and bananas. She also reaches for anything and everything on the table so we've learned to set things just out of reach. That just succeeds in making her frustrated and mad! lolz. The beginning of tantrums.
Last night, Olivia slept through the entire night for the first time in several months. Good sign! Although, mom doesn't mind cuddling and nursing her in bed in the morning. :) I cannot believe how much she's grown and changed. I'm trying so hard to enjoy every moment. I wish I didn't have to work full time and could spend more waking hours withe Olivia. But, I'm happy she's being socialized.
I tell you though, if we have a second kid, I'm taking the maximum amount of time off.
Looking forward to our 10 days in Hawaii at the end of June (Kauai, super fancy), and our Anniversary camping trip the first weekend in May!!! Hey, that's two weekends away - awesome! I guess we need to start hunting down our camping gear.
But I now predict a week until crawling. Olivia is debatably moving around now. IN the last two days she's been shimmying on her stomach towards things a LOT more! So exciting... and our lives are about to change ye again! We cannot leave her alone for a minute on the floor! She shimmied over to the space heater in her bedroom (which was off) while I was reading her a book on the floor. Of course they go straight for the things that can cause harm! So this weekend we'll have to do at least some amount of baby-proofing.
