11 Month Update

Previous Updates: 10 Months | 9 Months | 8 Months | 7 Months | 6 Months | 5 Months | 4 Months

Did last week fly by?! I felt like it went really fast! And we're already days away from April! WOW! I truly cannot believe how fast time has flown! Next month we'll have a one year old!

Alana
Alana is going great! She is getting so big and at 11 months she was 18.2lbs (remember, she started out at 4lbs13oz). She is crawling and getting into everything! She moves pretty fast too! She is starting to use her walker but we still need to be present for her to use it or she will fall. She also got her glasses and does a fairly good job wearing them.

She is doing a fantastic job sleeping! Sleeping from 8 - 8:30 pm to when we wake her up around 6 am.

She doesn't have any teeth yet and we are FINALLY moving towards level 3 foods (with chunks). Previously she would instantly vomit when we gave her anything chunky.

Mom & Dad (aka Alexa & Matt)
We are doing well. Just keeping busy with work, life and Alana. We haven't been able to sleep in or have any "us" time since our trip to Boston. We will be working on trying to get a date night planned here in the next few weeks.

We have been a bit on edge with our jobs; we both work in oil and gas and things don't seem to be getting any better for that industry. So there's that. All you can do is keep on moving forward and hope you're not one of "the ones".

I have also been busy starting to put together and craft all of Alana's first birthday stuff. I told my husband that I'll start decorating over the weekends to I don't have to do it all at once.

Letting go of the Baby Monitor

When is a good time to let up on the baby monitor?

When she was first born I was sleeping in the room right next to her. So I used the monitor more for visual needs than to hear her. And it was located right next to the pillow.

When I moved back into the master bedroom I would keep the monitor screen on (you have the to make it black because the screen is VERY bright) and the volume on 3. I would still lean over to check the screen to make sure she was okay and to see if she had moved.

When she started pulling herself up we had to relocate the monitor to the wall. And now, at almost 11 months, I am starting to turn the screen off at night, like I said, that thing is BRIGHT! And I turn the volume on 2 sometimes if her sound machine is making too much noise for me.

She is a pretty good sleeper. We have a few sleep set backs, you can read about our 4 month sleep regression and we had another one late last year. It only took one time of letting her cry it out for almost 10 minutes and then she just slept through the night.

I'm not sure when parents take the monitor down for good...maybe when they are 3ish?

Anybody reading have older kids? When did you take the monitor down? 

Miraflex ~ Baby Glasses

I had put Alana on my eye insurance during enrollment because her doctor had noticed a little crossing of one eye at her 4 month check up. She had already told me to make an appointment the with pediatric ophthalmologist because she had a lot of gunk in her eye and may need her tear duct opened up. After she didn't need her duct opened up I kept the appointment because of the crossing.

But then the crossing went away.

And then between months 10 and 11 months one eye started crossing again. I sort of panicked. I called the ophthalmologist immediately knowing he gets booked up pretty quickly. I was able to get an appointment 2 weeks out but told them if they had an afternoon appointment open up I'll take it. And they did! We were able to come in the next day!  

Alana did great during her visit, even the doctor commented on it. I was so amazed at how they handled her and got her attention so they could get her prescription.

Alana is farsighted (which means she can only see stuff far away). So when she was holding stuff close to her face she would focus so hard her eyes would cross. Then they would be so tired that one would stay sort of crossed.

Enter Miraflex, the no metal, unbreakable frames for kids and babies. Alana literally has the smallest size they make.

The first afternoon we put them on her she hated them and kept taking them off. But we distracted her with playing and toys and she seemed to do really well. And by the next day it was not an issue, she was keeping them on all the time!

I am a little sad that she needs glasses at such an early age. But glasses are inevitable for her since I have glasses, well contacts, all 4 of her grandparents have glasses and so does at least one of her uncles. But I am thankful that there isn't too much of a struggle to get her to wear them (I'm 100% sure there would have been if this started at age 2 or 3).

Did you have glasses when you were a kid? Or do your babies have glasses?

Balancing Act

There is no doubt that having a baby is hard. You have to learn to juggle your already crazy life + baby. I'm gonna come out and say it, we're not very good at it.

We finally decided that one of us will take her with us when we run errands and the other will get to work on the house: cleaning, laundry, yard work...the list goes on.

We did just that this past weekend and it worked out pretty well. I took Alana Saturday with me to a trip to Party City and Hobby Lobby for some shopping for her birthday while Matt cleaned the kitchen. Then on Sunday he took her grocery shopping while I tackled the MOUND of clothes that needed to be folded. They were gone for an hour and half and while I got everything folded...but it wasn't put up by the time they got home. I had hoped to clean our room too but that will have to be saved for next weekend. And we still have some yard work to do.

When we go out I wear Alana in my baby pack on my front. She loves being out and about but I really see it as a hassle. First I have to carry her diaper bag in and out of the stores with me. I would leave it in my car but Houston is known for its car break-ins and I wouldn't put it bast a crook to bash in a window for a diaper bag, so it comes with me. And I have a difficult time getting into my purse to pay when she is strapped on (I have forgone my designer handbag for a cross-the-body bag to fee up my hands).

When people tell me they are expecting again and then they will have 2 under 2 I try to hide the, "are you f**king nuts?!" look on my face. Matt says they are just better at it then we are, lol. And it may be true...but some of these people have family networks close by which we don't have. When we want to go out its not just dinner and drinks we're spending money on but its also the babysitter making the night cost close to $200+ depending on how many drinks we have.

I mean even after 10.5 months after giving birth I still have baby hairs growing back on my head (I have never used more hair product in my life to tame these sons of biotches) and I still have a very faint line from by belly button to bikini line from my first pregnancy. We still don't know if we want another, we're going to wait and see what Alana's needs are (I'll post about that at the next monthly update) before we jump in with both feet for another.


Do you want one, two or more kids?! Have a happy Wednesday! 

Picking the Right Sippy Cup

There are so many trial and error products you go through when you have a baby. I am sharing with you another one today...the sippy cup.

At Alana's 9 month check up her doctor told us that we could start to introduce her to a sippy cup. So we did. First we tried the Tommee Tippy sippy cups that have a hard spout, she didn't like it at all! So after a few weeks I called a friend and asked her what she did. She told me there are transition sippy cups that are sippy cups but with a spout made from the same material as a bottle nipple. The hunt for one of these was on!

I found the NUK brand transition sippy cup. She sort of would drink from it but not really. So one day, in an effort to get her to drink from it, I took a sip from it. It was actually really hard to get the liquid out! So I went to look for another brand, one with more flow. And I found the Philip Avent. And its perfect! She just drinks her snack from it right now but we're working our way up.

What sippy cups do you use? Did you get a winner on the first try?