The Higgins Family: Embry: 28 Weeks

Week 28 was another good one, minus a fluke night where Embry forgot she was six months old and resorted back to her newborn days! Lots and lots of rolling, up on her knees rocking, but still no crawling! We had a few fun play dates, went to a birthday party, and had a nice relaxing weekend at home! Here goes...

Rolling and Rocking, Still

Well, still no crawling! Lots of rolling and rocking and planking going on!

Practicing crawling while drooling! Hah!

Won't you play with me sister?

Getting in PJs after bath...Mrs. Rolly Baby

Wanting to crawl, on the changing table

She still enjoys her playmat!

Although, her kicking and rolling usually make it fall!

My two best girls

Chewing on her shapes in her favorite spot...

Booty up plank

Ready position

Sleep

I'm not sure I've mentioned E's specific schedule. I know I like to have this like this to look back on, so here's what a typical day looks like around here currently...

E typical gets up between 7:00-7:30 am. Jacob will get up with her, change her diaper and play until she gets fussy enough and needs to eat. Now that she's not eating in the night anymore, my extra little sleep in the morning is fading away. She's pretty darn hungry when she gets up. Still it's nice to mosey out of bed while Jacob pops up to get her up and changed.

She goes back down for nap at 9:00 am. Really if she gets up at 6:45 or 7:30, she's ready right at 9:00 am. Typically this nap is around 90 minutes.

Her afternoon nap is usually right at 2:00 pm, but varies depending on her morning nap. Sometimes she goes down as early as 1:15-1:30 pm.

Bedtime is at 7:00 pm. I really would prefer she be on more of an 8pm-8am schedule, but this girl begs to sleep at 7:00. I'm sure if I really worked at it I could switch her schedule a little, but we've just gone with what seems to be her natural sleep cycle and stuck with it as a schedule. It has been really nice to have time for me and Jacob each night. We've even started eating dinner after she goes to bed. We were trying to fit dinner, bath, books, bed into 6:30-7:00 pm and it just wasn't working.

She sleeps at night and both naps in a sleep sack and with her white little lovey. We keep this specific football pacifier clipped to whatever sleep sack she's in. I've found the dark brown is easy to spot against her white sheet even in the dark. Making the switch to clipping her paci to her I believe was a big contribution to her sleeping 12 hours straight. She usually now wakes up with it in her mouth, which she never did before.

Walking into her room after her morning nap. Paci in mouth, lovey in hand.

She had one of her worst nights ever this week! She had taken an awful, awful morning nap that day (30 min long!) and had an eventful day (birthday party) and went to bed a half hour late. Not sure if the sleep frenzy had her off, or if it was teething (still no teeth here), a mixture of both, or what! She woke up at 9:00 pm and then was up from 1:30-3:00 crying (screaming!), and was up for the day at 6:00 am. Unfortunately it was the night that E-Pa (Grandpa Embry) was in town, so the whole house was up for a good chunk of the night. We tried rocking her three different times and nothing seemed to help. Anyway, we're back on track! Thank goodness!

Outside Fun

Early in the week we had weather in the high 80's! It was actually nice to break out all of Embry's cute summer clothes. I love her in little bubble outfits. We were able to go on many nice walks and put in a lot of good time in her new swing.

Eating

This week we did a few more finger foods. She still doesn't have her pincer grasp (typically around 8 months babies gain that ability), but she really likes to self feed. A lot of times even with purees she grabs the spoon from me and wants to feed herself.

I am using some of the ideas of the "Baby Led Weaning" Method. (Click here for explanation) Basically the "BLW" belief is to never spoon feed your baby and never feed them purees. Embry does enjoy purees and eats quite a bit of food, but also enjoys some BLW ideas (gnawing on large pieces of fruits, vegetables, etc). So we're kind of doing a mixture of both.

This week we started her on the "protein" purees. She had two jars of chicken and sweet potato and two jars of turkey and rice. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to try to make my own and puree the meat or what. A friend who has a baby a year older than Embry gave me a ton of left over jars of organic baby food that her little girl outgrew.

This week she was more into scrambled eggs and liked feeding herself fistfulls. I also baked some sweet potato and crumbled it up and she liked eating those. She also continued to really like eating raw cucumber. I also let her feed herself (gnaw on) chunks of apple and she loved it. (A funny video below shows what happens when her chunks of apple fall on the ground...)

She is now having two meals a day in her high chair. One in the morning about an hour after nursing (around 8:30 am) and right before her morning nap. Then one in the evening around 5:30, right before bath and bed. It's definitely a messy job!

Eggs and sweet potatoes

Strawberries in her mesh feeder

Eating apples while watching Athena

I wonder if I can shove this whole apple in my mouth...

After the apple fell on the ground... oh the drama!

Here's a video of the apple falling drama...

My little strawberry shortcake

Our new bib came in this week- Must say, best bib ever. Baby Bjorn Soft Bib I think it's called. So worth the $12.00!

Miss Piggy's dinner Saturday night.
2 cubes (2 oz) apples, 2.5 oz jar sweet potatoes, 2.5 oz jar of green beans and started in on a jar of chicken and rice! (Using up jar food that was given to us by a neighbor-leftover from her baby!)

Green bean face! I had given her green beans on two different occasions and it made her literally SHUDDER each time. Saturday night she LOVED them; seriously couldn't feed her fast enough. Lesson to all- keep offering food to your little one, they may eventually like it!

Silly baby!

Play Dates and Parties

We have a shopping center with new frozen yogurt shop really geared towards kids less than 2 miles from our house. They have a huge indoor playscape. Wednesday we met up with our neighbor Lauren who has 2 year old Eliot after both kids' naps. We visited the fountain on our way out.

Thursday we went to a birthday party. The family I babysat for twice a week for 2.5 years had a party for Loren who turned three! It was great to see their family again and reminded me how much I miss them.

Carrie and Embry

Carrie, Birthday Boy Loren, me and Embry

Friday our neighborhood group of moms had our first official playgroup. There are quite a bit of moms who stay home in our neighborhood who have lots of little ones. We've set up an online group and are determined to start more meet ups. Embry had a great time. There were a few other babies and lots and lots of toddlers. She loved rolling around and watching all the chaos!

E had quite an admirer

Lots of hugs

Embry very interested in new baby, Hollister.

Girls, girls, girls! Here are some of the bigger kids

Saturday afternoon we had a neighborhood picnic at a park in our neighborhood. We took a long walk the morning of, then came home, grabbed our donations (it was to collect food for a shelter nearby) and headed back out. It was the perfect day to spend outside and we enjoyed getting to meet some new neighbors. (As you can tell by our outfits, there was a Celtics game that afternoon).

Theenie's always a distraction around here

Was a little windy, so we bundled up baby for a walk with her two faves these days (Sophie and pink monkey)

Had to stop for a photo op in a random yard... didn't get any great shots.

Daddy was a little worried his backside wouldn't fit down the slide! Hah!

Babbling

Embry has "babbled" for awhile now (especially loving to say "mamama" when upset!) but this week she really seemed to start "talking". When it's quiet at our house or in the car, she seems to want to fill the space with her noises. LOTS of babbles this week. Here are a few videos of her gabbing away...

I think we have a talkative girl on our hands...