7 Months - "Mama"

That’s right she is saying MAMA!!! It makes my heart happy every time she does it. The first time she did it I was trying to get her to crawl and she was crying, I told her if she said mama I would come and get her. Within seconds she belted out; “MAMA!” Edwin and I were like WHAT!? So now whenever I leave the room she cries and says mama, whenever she wants me to get her she says mama. It is pretty cute!


This month has been very hectic with moving and finals I have felt pulled in MANY directions. Malaika has been a trooper and made it through it all with me. I finished my final Anatomy class and got a B!!!! Hooray! I never realized how hard these classes were until I started them. There have been many sleepless nights this term. I have this week off and then I start my summer classes. I am taking Pathophysiology and an online typing class. I have one more class to complete and then I can apply for the nursing program. I AM SOOOO READY! Okay enough about school.. Lets talk about Malaika.



What she is doing this month:

*Definitely sitting by herself – She pulls herself into a sitting position from laying and can catch herself now if she is falling.

*Crawling- She cracks me up! She gets on her knees and rocks back and forth. Then she crawls for a few second and then drops to her stomach and does and army crawl. She can make it from one side of the room to another if the incentive is right.


*She pulls her self to a standing position. I was going through her clothes and had some totes out. Had her sitting on the floor with some toys and I needed to run into the other room to get something. While I was gone I hear the scream of a life time. I ran back in and there she was standing by herself. She wasn’t even holding onto anything! She had pulled herself up using the tote and then didn’t know what to do so she was scared. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in!

*I cannot leave her on the bed anymore for naptime. I left her on moms bed while I did dishes. About 15 minutes later I heard a THUD followed by a scream. She had fallen off the bed.. UGH! It is so scary! I kept a close eye on her the rest of the day to make sure she was okay. I was so worried that she had fallen on her head.

*She is eating all sorts of foods. I just gave her mango’s the other day. We have been taking our food and grinding it up and giving it to her. Her favorite food so far is applesauce. She also loves chewing on carrots. I can just give her a raw carrot and she will chew on it for an hour! (It gets little tech marks on it.hehe)

*She has 2 teeth that are through on the bottom and one on top that is starting to come in. Teething is so tough for babies! I feel so bad for her sometimes. She had a fever of 102.4 for 4 days when the teeth were breaking through. And then once that finished she had horrible constipation. We have to use a glycerin suppository to help her out. POOR THING


*She is still sleeping with us… I think we are ALL to attached

*She is wearing size three diapers (actually squeezing into them until this pack is gone)


*She is wearing 12 to 18 month clothing

*She loves Music! Anytime she hears a commercial with music she perks up and starts dancing. She wiggles and slaps one hand on her leg

*She is as beautiful as ever!!!


*She loves laughing!!! She is starting to laugh at little things we do. Sometimes I will be laughing at edwin or something on TV and she will laugh too.

Everyday I look at her and I am SO Blessed! She is a really good baby who loves learning new things. She is so persistent and I can tell she is going to be so smart when she is older. I never knew that I would love a little person this much!
Hope everyone is enjoying their summer break so far!

Swingin

6 month check-up- Feva!

Malaika had her 6 month check-up last week and it went.. okay
Her stats were:
Weight: 19 lbs 6 oz
Length: 28 inches long
He said that her head is pretty big for this age (This cracked me up) But he said it is proportionate to the rest of her body. She is currently in the 95 percentile. So she is still looking like she will be over 6 feet.



I had a few things I wanted the doctor to check on.
*She has been rubbing her ears so much that they have been bleeding so I wanted him to check and see if she had and ear infection/ she doesn't! YAY! He said that it may be her way of discovering her ears.
* Separation anxiety- She has been having a hard time when I am not around. Poor Edwin, every time I leave she cries the whole time I am gone. The doc said it is normal and by the time she is 2 or 3 she will become a daddy's girl! He just said to keep trying and eventually she will come around.


Her shots went okay this time. She only had to have 2 pokes and she made it through them ok. Later that evening she was really irritable and just cried and cried. I checked her temp and she was 101.3. I gave her some tylenol and we all went to bed. around midnight her fever had spiked to 102.7 so I called the advise nurse. They said that if it reached 104 to take her to the emergency room but for now just give her some more tylenol and a wet washcloth. By morning the fever was 100.9 and then it went down throughout the day. It was scary to see her like that though. We have been lucky so far and I have not had to deal with a fever or sickness. she looked so sad just sitting there and she felt like a furnace. We made it through ans she is back to her normal self now!

trying to crawl

Malaika and Mwila

6 months - Lovely

These past 6 months have been the most wonderful, exciting, emotional, tiring, exhausting, life changing months in my life. I cannot imagine my life without my precious little girl. She is truly the light in my life. She makes me want to be a better person so that one day she will want to grow up to be like her mama!



I went through all of her pictures that we have taken in the past six months and I can’t believe how much she has changed. When it happens right in front of your eyes you miss some of the smaller details. I decided I would post a newborn pic of her and a recent pic to you all could see the comparison.





She is soooo beautiful!

This month has been a trying month for me emotionally. As Malaika grows and starts to discover this new world around her all she wants to do is touch it, grab it, and eat it! This poses a problem for a little one with very little coordination. She tries so hard to get to things she wants but she gets very frustrated in the process. This causes my little “Angel” to act like a two year old and throw herself backwards, pulling her arms in and screaming. Since she discovered her new voice and the reaction it has, she has made this a daily habit for anything she does not like. If I bring a bottle to her mouth and she wasn’t hungry…. THROW BACK AND SCREAM… If I have her sitting on the floor doing tummy time… SCREAM.. If I have her sitting in a position she doesn’t want to.. THROW BACK AND SCREAM… EEK! I am not sure how to handle a 5-6 month old throwing a tantrum. I tell her no. I let her cry it out every once in awhile. I try to find a new position that will make her happy. But by the end of the day I am one exhausted mama. Soooo.. if anyone has any advise I will gladly take it for the tantrum throwing baby.
I try not to get to frustrated though because I know she is just trying to get to a toy she wants or trying to tell me that she wants to do something else. I just never thought it would be this exhausting mentally and emotionally.



Now that I got that out of the way lets talk about some good things she is doing.



*Sitting on her own completely.. her wobbling is pretty much gone. She does have her moments though so I stay pretty close.


*She can stand on her own now for about a minute. Until she see’s something else and tries to reach for it. She can stand up on her own if she is holding onto something.


*When she is on the floor she will turn herself around so she is facing the opposite direction. She is also starting to roll more. If she is in a laying position she can sit up.


*She is not crawling yet but she is trying really hard. The poor thing gets so flustered.


*She turned to edwin last night and said “ dada” that was the first time she has said it! UGH! I wanted mama.. Oh well



*She can drink out of a cup. We have to be careful now when we are drinking. She is surprisingly strong and can pull the cup down.


*She likes House of Mouse. I let her watch it in the morning when I got to take a shower… it entertains her for 23 min.. hehe


*She likes to do what we call a “knee slapper” She takes her hand and hits her knee… pretty much this is an all day thing. I will have to video it so everyone can see.


*She discovered her lips and smacks them all the time.


*I am teaching her how to give hugs and kisses and she is learning. This morning I said, “Give me a kiss” and she leaned forward with her lips slightly puckered. I was sooo proud. (Believe me this is something we have been working on for WEEKS! )


*She is still not excited to go to other people. She will for a few minutes until she catches a glimpse of me. Then she reaches her hand out to me and starts crying.



*She is definatly reaching out when she wants to be picked up.


*We can no longer give her a bath in the baby bathtub… water gets EVERYWHERE!


*Her favorite song is Twinkle twinkle…This can distract her from anything. As soon as I start singing it she gets really excited and smiles really big. I even recorded myself singing so if we are in the car and she has a meltdown I can play it OVER and OVER and OVER. hehe




I guess that is enough for now.. it is amazing how much she has grown and I know I am forgetting a bunch of new things.


I thought I would also list the nicknames we have for her. Some have stuck and others have not.
For the most part we call her Lika (L-eye-kah)
Buga (Boo- gah)
Diva
Sis
Mal
Lovely
Gibi ( Ji-bi )


Edwin is the one who came up with Lika and he thinks he is pretty cool. LOL!
The house is almost done soo I will be posting some before and after pictures soon. Thank you to Solo, Susanna and Chris for helping us paint the whole place! Also I will have a biggest looser update soon… noone has won yet.. 20 pounds is hard to lose! But I will tell you I only have 5 more to go!!!

Wedding Vows

My Dad got married on Saturday. It was such a beautiful intimate ceremony and I was so blessed to be a part of it. I am so thankful that my dad has found someone that will make him happy. I love her and I love her family!
They got married on the Portland Spirit a 4 hour dinner cruise along the columbia.
Here are some pics of the family. It was soooo good to see my brother and his fiance and my great grandpa A.D. was there. (So it is Malaika's Great Great Grandpa)