Andromeda is Half a Year Old!!!

Andromeda has officially passed the half year mark and I have to say it went by a lot faster than I was expecting given how slow it felt at times along the way (lack of sleep plays a strong role in perception...) At 6 months old, Andi weighs a whopping 15 lbs and is 26 inches long.  And I swear she packed on a good bit of that in just the last week.  I picked her up in the car seat carrier the other day and though "whoa, this is actually starting to feel heavy to me".  In terms of skill development, Andromeda can now sit upright by herself and is pretty darn sturdy when she does so.  She can lean in various directions and push herself back to upright as well.  And she prefers to be sitting upright whenever possible, a preference she has become quite vocal about in her stroller and the bathtub.  She discovered her "G" sounds.  Everything is "a-GA!"  In other vocal news, she now laughs as well and it is absolutely delightful!  It never fails to put a smile on our faces!  Andi has also discovered her feet and loves to grab them and use them to push at and feel things.  We've been working on tummy time too, which isn't her favorite, but she's starting to get really good at it!  In general this is a really fun age and we're loving watching Andi develop her skills and communicate with us more.

Sitting up like a big girl!

Chilling out on the patio in her fancy new chair with the deceivingly well behaved pups!

Combination tummy time and play time.  Getting strong!

Andromeda's new favorite place to hang out is the rug in our master bedroom.  It's a plush shag rug (meant to to muffle the sound of animal paws on the creaky wood floors in there) that she can sit on for hours and play with, so we've taken to hanging out with her in there when she gets fussy.  It's also a good area for morning stretches with daddy and kitty watching.

The cutest picture from behind while she marvels at the carpet.

Weekend stretches with daddy!

Sleep is getting better but still not stellar.  Andromeda can fall asleep on her own for bedtime and naps.  Naps were pretty crappy for a while (30 minutes max at home) but they're starting to improve.  Thankfully she takes some pretty decent naps at daycare.  She still wakes up 2-3 times per night to eat.  More when she's hitting a growth spurt or developmental milestone.  Those nights are pretty rough on me, especially when they fall on a work night.  But we're working on it.  And when she's awake during the day, even if she only took a cruddy 30 minute nap, she is usually the happiest, most smiley and cheerful baby, so we really can't complain too much.  Here are a few more pictures of our adventures from this past month.

Outfit #2 of the morning for both mommy and kiddo after a literal shit show...

Helping mommy bake!

First pool excursion since we last tried around 2 months old.  This time was more successful, though she remained slightly unsure.

Early dinner out at daddy's favorite brewpub!

And the final new development of the month is Andi's introduction to solid foods!  We are attempting to do a Baby Lead Weaning (BLW) approach where we give Andromeda large pieces of soft foods that she can pick up and feed to herself.  We've also tried a few spoon fed foods.  It's been going so-so.  Our first food that we tried a few times in both chunk and pureed form was sweet potatoes and Andi is firmly in the "hell no" camp when it comes to sweet potatoes.  Behold:

This started as chunks of steamed sweet potato.  It made its way onto her eyebrows, but not one piece of it entered her mouth...

Our first attempt with pureed sweet potatoes did not go well.

We have had better luck with other foods since the Sweet Potato Debacle of 2018.  So far Andromeda will happily pick up and feed herself bananas, nectarines, avocado, and watermelon.  Kid definitely has a bit of a sweet tooth.  We have tried carrots too and she's still eh on that one, so we'll keep working on it.  She likes to try eating what we're eating and I don't want to discourage her interest in food, so she's also had a taste of my grilled cheese sandwich, a piece of Uncle K's smoked brisket (she is a HUGE fan of this and gummed it to pieces - such a little Texan!), and a couple small spoonfuls of plain tart frozen yogurt.  I took advantage of that last one and had her try plain greek yogurt and she was a pretty big fan of that too.  Last food we tried was oatmeal and she was only "eh" so we'll keep working on it.  Coming up on the menu are zucchini, applesauce, and broccoli.

Mmmmm, banana!

Absolutely everything around her gets covered in green when she eats avocados...

 

Uncle K had us over for some smoked meats on Memorial Day

Texas baby enjoying some smoked brisket!

Successful taste test with watermelon

Weekend breakfast with mommy and daddy - we had eggs and toast and Andi had watermelon and brisket!

At the end of month 6 we had a family photo shoot with a photographer, so I'll work on getting those posted once we get them back.  Our sneak peaks so far look fantastic!  So that's it!  One half of a year with this sweet little peanut:

Andi's 5 Month Update

It is truly amazing to see how fast Andromeda is learning new skills these days.  She has mastered using her hands and can easily reach and grab for absolutely anything and everything, especially things she shouldn't be grabbing (S taught her to grab his sunglasses from the top of his head as a fun skill which has unfortunately parlayed into Andi trying to grab my vision glasses off of my face...).  She has rolled over a grand total of 2 times.  The first time was at daycare and the second time was later that same day at home.  Of course neither was caught on video.  There has been plenty of rolling onto her side since, but no full rolling over.  Andromeda has also mastered sitting on her own without assistance.  Her new obsession is the kitties, though she still loves her doggies as well.  All of the fur babies do so well with her!  She has officially started to giggle when you tickle her just right (baby giggles are the best!)  And she talks in her adorable baby babble ALL THE TIME!  Every time I go to pick her up from daycare the ladies tell me how happy she is and how she has barely shut up since I dropped her off...

One of Andromeda's favorite toys is her car.  She constantly reaches for it!

Giggling with mommy

The cuteness of this picture kills me.  She is sitting up on my legs completely unassisted while we play with her alphabet train.

We did a lot of stuff over the past month.  Andi got to spend a bunch of time with S's family when grandma and grandpa came into town for her uncle K and cousin A's birthday. 

Spending time with Grandma and Grandpa

Chilling with her cousin A at his bday party!

Andromeda always digs snuggles with Uncle K

We also went to go hang out with some friends and Andromeda got to spend time with some big kids (she loves big kids!)  Then friends came into town and Andi got to spend more time with big kids, including a trip to the neighborhood playground, some very loud piano playing/pounding, and a trip to a local brewery for an afternoon. 

A mutual adoration between these two cuties!

Yes, it was loud.  But it was also a great way to distract 3 kiddos!

Brewery fun with friends and family!

The next weekend I had a work picnic and Andromeda played her first game of cornhole and charmed all of my coworkers.  We also took some time in early May to work on art projects for the grandmas for Mother's Day.  And Andi's fifth month ended with her first night being babysat (by Uncle K) while S and I went to go see Hamilton!

It's a 3 pointer!

Andromeda wasn't too sure what to do with her bag of paint and paper at first...

After some careful consideration, though, and some thorough fussing about the forced tummy time, she came to the conclusion, as she does all things, that it should probably go in her mouth!

Our first adult night out with friends since having the baby - S got me Hamilton tickets for my birthday!

 A few other highlights from this month were Andi's Super Baby pose every time we lift her into the air.  She will do it on repeat for many minutes at a time and she had S and I in stitches laughing!  She has also obtained her first set of wheels from grandma and grandpa in Florida and she LOVES her car.  S is thrilled.  He is now introducing her to as many car-related activities as he can.  She has not protested yet...

Super Chunkster!

Andromeda's new wheels.  She is a BIG fan!

Andi helped daddy get his drifting wheels ready for the track.  Vroom!

And this cutie was having fun sitting in daddy's new (to him) Porsche

And that's all we have for month 5!  Sorry it's a little late - Andromeda's decent sleep skills took a turn for the worse after her 5 month birthday and we've only just recovered.  Although before that happened she had a few nights where she only woke up once to eat and it was absolutely delightful to get a solid 4 hour chunk of sleep!  We are a work in progress...  I leave you with a few more moments of random cuteness.

Someone has finally started to like books!!! This one about shapes and Frank Lloyd Wright is one of her favorites!

I got her some new geeky space bibs to capture the gallons of drool she releases each day.

That's all until next month when Andromeda will be half a year old!!!

Andromeda's 4 Month Update

Andi's 4th month started off very eventfully.  Her Uncle D and his girlfriend E came to visit us in Houston for a long weekend and we did a lot of exploring with them.  And then I went back to work and Andromeda started full-time daycare during the week.  She is doing great at daycare, the teachers there say that she is always happy and smiley.  After bottle bootcamp with Grandma in Florida, Andi has been great with bottles, in fact she eats more at daycare from the bottles than she does at home (she gets distracted easily these days).  She struggles a little with her naps during the day there, though, due to all of the other commotion going on (so much to look at!!!), but she seems to be handling it ok.  She just takes more frequent, short naps.

This was the first time she successfully slept in the bed with us for a glorious 2 hour family nap...

She hit her 4 month sleep regression right on time, so that played some havoc with her sleep schedule anyway.   Her sleep had been a little crappy anyway since she started waking up at night for feedings around 3 and a half months.  But then she thought "hey, I know, let's wake up every 1.5 hrs and see how that goes!"  It does not go well.  So we instituted some additional sleep training and it's helped immensely.  She has had some relapses, but for the most part she will fall asleep on her own at night in about 10-15 minutes with just some light fussing and she is only waking up at night for feedings.  We've even had a few nights where she only woke up twice to eat instead of 3 times to eat.  I'm hoping that trend continues as I usually actually get a 4 hour chunk of sleep on those nights and it is heavenly!

Andi's favorite toy to cram into her mouth, Sophie the giraffe.

Vroom vroom!  What S hopes is the beginning of Andromeda's life long love affair with cars...

Tummy time with a buffet of toys

Developmentally Andromeda is right on schedule.  She can see a lot further now and she loves to stare at S and I from across the room, go for walks (the weather has been gorgeous lately), and look at the trees when the wind blows.  But by far her absolute favorite thing to watch is her doggies!  Andi absolutely LOVES Pandora and Penny and her favorite thing to do is to look at them!  She loves to see them wrestle in the house and also adores going into the backyard to watch Pandora run while we throw the ball for her (Pandora is also absolutely thrilled with this latest trend as well as she is obsessed with both balls and her baby...)  Andromeda's coordination is improving as well, she can grab her toys, clothes, fingers, and most recently my hair quite easily now and directs everything to her mouth.  She is making attempts to roll, but is only getting about half way there at this time.  She is finally starting to like tummy time too, and she is starting to get better at sitting on her own with light assistance.

One of Andromeda's roll attempts during her 4 month photo shoot

Andromeda is starting to like her baths a lot more lately too, she kicks and splashes in the water now.  We're starting to introduce some toys, although her favorite thing to play with is the washcloth...  And she is usually happy as a clam when she gets wrapped up in her hoodie towel.  The smiles are adorable.

Pandora initially misunderstood when I suggested that we go give the baby a bath...

Inspecting her new fishy bath toy

But in the end preferring to steal both washcloths from me instead of playing with the toy

Peekaboo!  Must try to eat the towel too!

And here are the pictures from the beginning of the month when D and E came to visit us in Houston!  We were trying to Andromeda on a nap schedule, so we hadn't really tried going out into town with her much.  But spending a Sunday showing D and E around Houston was a great way to get us to branch out a little and try some new things with Andi.  We took Andi to her first brunch at City Acre Brewery (one of our favorite out of the way brunch places), then walked around the Montrose area and the outer buildings of the Menil Collection, got ice cream at Amy's Ice Cream, drove around Herman Park, and finally got an early dinner at Ninfa's on Navigation.  It was a full day and Andromeda took catnaps in our arms or in the car, so it wasn't her best day of sleep but to be honest her naps nowadays aren't really much longer than that anyway.

Andromeda's first brunch!

She was kind of obsessed with S's beer...

D and E enjoying their beer and brunch.  The food here is awesome.

Family pic on the jack sculpture where S proposed to me!

Baby's first TexMex dinner out!

D and E stayed until Wednesday.  On Monday I went back to work for my first day while they drove into town to check out the rodeo!  On Tuesday I left work a wee bit early, met up with them at Andromeda's daycare and proceeded to give D, E, and Andi a tour of Johnson Space Center.

Andromeda contemplating the giant ISS mockup at the NBL

D and E in the old shuttle cock pit trainer

S met up with us to give a tour of the giant vacuum chamber he works on

We ended Andi's fourth month with her 4-month doctor appointment where we were told she is now 23 inches long and weighs 12.5 lbs.  She's in the 25th percentile and the doctor said that, despite the runny nose and mild cough she's picked up as a result of daycare, she is a super healthy little kiddo!  We had a little bit of the wait for the doctor to come in for the appointment, so we took some pictures of Andromeda "flying", another activity she loves.  Check out that adorable little chunk!

Look mommy, I'm flying!

And we leave you with a few more outtakes from Andi's 4 month photo shoot: