Zia: her fourth month

I'm finding the second kid to be an entirely different experience.  Every milestone was a daily noted (and watched and waited for) occurrence with P.  With Zia, well, I'm still shocked she's sitting and grabbing and moving.  The time has flown so fast it just doesn't seem possible that she's moving so steadily beyond newborn :) I am realizing I totally had postpartum depression with P and just thought it was the misery of sleep deprivation and overwhelming-ness of parenting.  Nope.  This is an entirely different experience and I thank my stars (and placental encapsulation) that it didn't strike me this time.

Watching otters at the Zoo.

She went to her very first doctor's appointment last week.  I think we found a great doc and just wanted Z on her roster for the inevitable time that we'll need a doc.  Turns out she's perfectly healthy ;)  Fifteen pounds, average weight, average height, hitting all of her milestones beautifully.  The doctor said Zia is a truly amazing baby - but I'm sure she says that to all the new patients ;)

She LOVES going on walks.

The only sad news was concerning the food sensitivities. Sweet Z has had an angry eczema patch since right after we returned to Portland.  Looking back, the one big change was me eating wheat again.  But I was in serious denial that it could be the culprit ;)  I dropped lots of different foods, experimenting, seeing if it would go away.  No dice.  It looked particularly sad the day we saw the doc and she strongly suggested me to drop wheat.  Sigh.  After three days of gluten free eating, the rash is gone.  Double sigh.  Oh well.  The Dr. said keeping her free of her food allergens, and thereby keeping her histamine response down, is really helping her to be a healthy baby.  Yay!

I've continued testing foods and have had some big successes to make up for the gluten free bit, so I'm really not feeling as bowled over by the limits as I was a couple of months ago.  Nevertheless, I'm still dairy, gluten (all grains, actually right now), soy, corn, nut, most seed, potatoes, yams and egg free.  I also have yet to test most fruits.  Since soy and corn lurk in everything sold at the store, we are totally package free (except for my dijon mustard;)  I'm trying to find really nutrient dense foods so I can fill up a bit faster, rather than having to cook and eat a million times a day (grains help me feel full.  So would nuts.  Sigh. Meat just doesn't!)  And I've been really focusing on calcium, cuz there's only so much broccoli I can consume in one sitting (though that amount is a shocking amount;)

Super tired, but really tickled with the whisk.

The biggest success I've added is sunflower seeds (yayyyyyyyyyyyy!)  She has had some crankiness since then and E will tease me, 'You eat sunflower butter today?" and I quickly remind him that I staunchly believe she is teething :)  And while I can't have a sunbutter sandwich, I can blend the shit up with dates, ginger and lemon zest for the yummiest "cookies" on the planet. (yes, A, these make me think of you and your ginger love:)  The best thing about this is that I finally have a transportable protein for outings with P, preventing me from becoming the Super Grump.

I've also added... chocolate.  I think that chocolate makes everything better.  Of course, I had to find a dairy and soy free chocolate (so, so rare) that was fair trade (ultra rare) and that makes this a spendy treat.  But, dammit, it makes me wowsers happy :)  And, when I zoom sunbutter, dates, dried apples, vanilla and chocolate in the quizinart?  I get "chocolate chip cookies."  This makes me very happy :)  We've also added salmon.  Happiness all around :)

But back to Z ;)  She's awesome. She still eats all. the. time.  I keep expecting her to spread out her feeds sometime soon...  And she has a couple of 2 hour stretches at night, but she also eats every hour for a lot of the night.  (Since she's in bed with me, this doesn't disturb me sooo much.  Except for when my brain turns on and then I can't get back to sleep, thinking about house hunting bizness.  After a couple of those nights, I start to dice my fingertips and switch out consonants.  The boys think I'm funny :) She also eats most of the day ;)   The better to keep those double knees...

She's sitting pretty strong.  Her legs are really strong and she flops herself over into a crawl position, but her weaker arms give out and she'll faceplant if you don't catch her.   She kinda hates her damn Bumbo.  But she wants to sit all the time.  Tricky when dicing and chopping and frying... So I schlumped the Sumo (kinda like a firm, waterproof bean bag) onto the living room floor and she sits on that with toys around to chew on and if she falls, no harm, no mommy guilt, no hot-grease spattered baby ;)

She LOVES P's funny faces.

Oh!  And she tried her first food!  P had NO interest in foods.  For Forever.  Zia has been watching my fork with delight for the last month!  She started grabbing my apple a week ago and licking it with delight.  Then she started in on my smoothie yesterday.  For calcium and micronutrients I juice an apple, lemon and ginger then blend that with a  blender full of spinach and some coconut milk each morning.  She tried to gnaw her way through my glass jar, so I let her have a drop off of my straw.  She greedily sucked it dry!  And clamored for more!  Seems like a strange first food, and if I remember correctly, you're supposed to start with single foods, after six months, and work up from there.  So I'm probably doing her and her sensitive digestive system some serious disservice.  I'll have to look into that ;)  When she eyed my turkey between two apples slices today I had to laugh.  Not quite yet ;)