Six Month roundup

Juliet had her six month check-up with her NICU doctors this week. Let’s compare, shall we?

Birth Weight: 2 pounds, 10 ounces (1200 grams)

Six Months: 12 pounds, 10 ounces (5735 grams)

Birth Height: 15 inches (? honestly, that’s still a blur)

Six Months: 23 inches

First, we met with a physical therapist. A first for Juliet! The PT was really impressed with Juliet’s rolling abilities. She’s not so impressed with her sitting abilities. We were sent on our merry way with strict instructions and exercises. Since Juliet’s legs are more developed and WAY stronger than her belly, we’re not allowed to let Juliet stand on our laps anymore until she’s sitting on her own, unsupported. A small price to pay to help with her development. If she doesn’t develop her core now, her standing unassisted and eventual walking will be delayed. As much as I joke about not being ready for Juliet’s mobility, I certainly don’t want it to be delayed.

We’re also supposed to get Juliet interested in her feet. You would think my six month old would love her feet. Quite the opposite. She loves hands. She loves holding her own hands but especially loves holding our hands. Especially when she’s eating!

After her Physical Therapy we met with her neonatal doctor. When he came into the room, you could tell her was shocked at her progress! He was the doctor that agreed with me when I put my foot down and said “She needs to come home!” He was impressed that she’s obviously thriving since coming home. He’s concerned that with the introduction of solid foods, her weight will begin to taper off. Seeing as she’s still gulping down 25-30 ounces of formula and eating up to three packets of solids a day, I don’t really see her weight going anywhere but up!

It’s still so hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that in six, short months, Juliet went from this:

to this:

Looking at the difference in these pictures really has me excited to see how much she’ll change in another six months!

*kisses*

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Six Months

I’m just going to go ahead and say it…this baby is half a year old

I’m actually starting to believe that I’m not going to be able to handle this growing up thing. Let’s just go ahead and freeze her now.

Six Month Stats:

Weight: 12 pounds 7.5 ounces

Height: 23.25 inches

Head circumference: 41.25 centimeters

(compare to 4-month stats)

She’s JUST under the percentiles for a full-term 6-month old for height and weight. But that head circumference? 12th percentile! I’m certain she will catch up by her 9-month well baby check.

For all those keeping track, Juliet is just shy of gaining 10 pounds since birth. Most babies double their birth weight by 6 months. Juliet has more than quadrupled hers!

Juliet can now roll front to back and back to front. When we put her down to sleep, she always goes down on her back and will then flip herself onto her stomach. Scary at first, but after numerous flipping her back only to watch her flip over again before we got out of the room, and after checking with the doctor, we’re leaving her be. The general theory is that if she can get herself onto her belly in her sleep, she’s strong enough to be ok.

She’s also starting to notice toys. My parents got her a tiger stuffed animal from the circus and she loves that thing. She’s constantly chewing on its ear.

The doctor gave us the go ahead for her to start eating 2nd foods. She’d also like us to introduce puffs/cheerios soon to help her with her dexterity. She needs to learn how to grab small objects.

We were advised to continue to keep her out of daycare until May as the flu has not yet hit here in NC. Blame the mild winter! Juliet ended up getting a flu shot today, along with 3 other vaccine shots and one oral vaccine. She’ll go back in on Friday to get her RSV booster. Speaking of which, that could very well be her last RSV booster of the season!

Bottom Line: my baby is growing up. This is all at once awesome for her and sad for me.

*kisses*

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Operation: Lose the Baby Weight (Week 6)

Previous Weight: 199.4

Current Weight: 197.4

Total Weight Lost: 8.4 pounds

This week’s milestone’s include:

• weighing less than 200 pounds on the doctor’s scales, fully clothed and wearing boots.

Yep, that’s pretty much it. That’s like the best present, ever.

This little girl…

…is now 6 months old. I don’t know how that happened. She has her 6-month well-baby visit on Wednesday where she’s getting all.the.shots. I’ll update everyone on Juliet’s Operation: Gain Some Baby Weight after that appointment.

*kisses*

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Well, it’s happened. My husband is no longer my Valentine.

Juliet had me send a picture to her Daddy this morning asking him to be her Valentine. He said, “of course, she didn’t even have to ask!”

Oh well. At least we had a nice 6-year run!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

*kisses*

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Operation: Lose the Baby Weight (Week 4)

Previous Weight:201.0

Current Weight: 199.4 (!)

Total Weight Lost: 6.4 pounds

There’s a ONE in front of my weight! I’ll be happy to never see that pesky two in front of my weight, ever again.

Now that I’m firmly into my weight loss, I’m going to throw working out back into the mix. My sister and I are going to some simple workouts during lunch on the days when I’m in the office. And hopefully I won’t be too busy to throw in some workouts on the days that I’m home w Juliet.

Things are about to get a whole lot busier around here since little miss has now mastered rolling front to back and back to front. Sitting up unassisted is right around the corner and crawling won’t be too far behind! I guess I’ll be losing some more weight by chasing after my baby!

*kisses*

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Operation: Lose the Baby Weight (Week 3)

Previous Weight: 201.4

Current Weight: 201.0

Total Weight lost: 4.8 pounds

You know, typically, I’d be upset about only losing 0.4 pounds this week. But let’s consider the week I’ve had…

• the return of a non-hormonal cycle.
• bouts of Post-Partum Depression
• um, a little thing called the Superbowl occurred and I just can’t ignore sliders and queso and cocktails.

I’m really hoping that next week I see the return of the number one in front of my weight.

*kisses*

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Oscars 2012

I’m so excited for the Oscars this year! Especially since I now have third person playing for the Vines team! It’s no secret that I take the Oscars quite seriously. I play in a contest with my Aunts and their friends (and now some family too!) and every year we switch off who goes to who’s house. Last year I headed up to Pittsburgh. This year they’re headed here!

That’s right. Juliet is totally playing this year. Originally I thought she might be old enough to line up some puffs or Cheerios and whichever one she went for first would be her pick.

However, she is not yet old enough for hand to mouth feeding. So I got creative. She is fascinated by the toys hanging from her playmat. I noticed that she never goes after them full force, but will always swat at them. So I decided that for each category, I would give her 30 seconds and count how many times she swatted at the toys. If she doesn’t swat at any, then her pick is the first listed. Same goes for if she swats more times than the category has nominees. Understand?

Here she is working on the Best Supporting Actor category:

Today she’s picked the first five categories. So far she’s picked a lock AND an upset. Unfortunately she’s also picked 3 doozies.

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Operation: Lose the Baby Weight (Week 2)

Previous Weight: 203.2

Current Weight: 201.4

Total Weight Lost: 4.4 pounds

If I’m being honest, the first time I stepped o n the scale this morning it read 200.6! I should have rejoiced and gone on my merry way. Unfortunately, I like to get the same number at least twice before I can believe it. Five weigh-ins later and my weight continued to read 201.4 and I never saw 200.6 again. Sadface. Maybe next week.

Still, losing 1.8 pounds this past week is pretty awesome. Especially since I didn’t work out at all. I began to feel some discomfort in my upper left leg and was worried about another blood clot. A few days rest proved that it was a strained muscle. Which is good b/c I ended up having to cancel my appointments to get my leg checked out b/c last week was crazy!

I’m going to try to do some low impact workouts this week. I’m mostly upset about my midsection so I’ve got a few different workouts earmarked that will focus on helping out with my belly.

*kisses*

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Five Months

Just so happy to be five months old today! This picture was taken a mere 2 hours ago and we’ve already had to change her outfit. Never underestimate the power of a five-month-old’s spit-up!

This kiddo now weighs in at a whopping 10 pounds, 11 ounces. She officially weighs more than her cousin did when she was born!

Solids have been a success! well, for the most part. She’s had

• rice cereal
• apples
• peaches
• bananas
• carrots
• green beans
• sweet potatoes
• peas

So far she’s IN LOVE with bananas. So much so hat I actually have started to just puree up a banana every morning for her morning snack! She can take or leave all of the other foods but if you feed her bananas? She happily gulps down every spoonful!

She’s rolling over like a champ. I wish I had video of this, but she refuses to do it when the camera is on.

She’s also starting to notice her toys and this is awesome. And super cute!

I’m back at work and it’s honestly not too bad at all. Mondays and Fridays in the office actually feel a bit like a vacation since I’m not doing two jobs at once. My Dadd is having a blast keeping her on those days and I think she likes it too!

I just cannot believe five months have passed since she was born. We visited the ICN yesterday and her nurses and doctors couldn’t believe how big she was! She’s officially been out of the hospital longer than she was in the hospital! It seems like just yesterday we were there and now I’m finding it harder to remember what it was like! I never want to forget that experience, but I’m totally ok with the fuzzy memory.

*kisses*

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Operation: Lose the Baby Weight (Week 1)

Previous Weight: 205.8

Current Weight: 203.2

Total Weight lost: 2.6 pounds

Not exactly the first week numbers I was hoping for, but a loss is a loss and I’ll take it!

I had forgotten just how difficult getting back into a weight loss routine can be. I spent most of last week unable to stand up without exclaiming “OW, OW, OW!” and on Saturday I couldn’t even complete my workout b/c when I went into a squat my left quad erupted in pain. I’m hoping I’ve just strained the muscle and this isn’t an indication of a bigger issue. I have an email into my vein doctor to double check that I shouldn’t be worried about clotting.

My diet was pretty on track this week. I’ve been using a calorie counting website to track my eating habits and managed to track every day last week except for Sunday. We had a potluck at church and I just didn’t know how to record the food that I ate. (I will say that I was a good girl and only made one plate of food, had one diet soda (my only all week!), and had one dessert (as opposed to a piece of every dessert!).)

I’m allowing myself to eat 1600 calories a day, which is on the high end. I’m still nursing so I want to make sure I eat enough to produce nutritious milk for Juliet. But I think I’m still on the high side of caloric intake and may knock my daily calories down to 1500.

Here’s hoping my Week 2 shows some good results! I really want to see a 1 as the first number in my weight on the scale here soon!

*kisses*

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