Penny and Bella

These two get along beautifully! Bella just crawls all over Penny and Penny just lays there. As you can see from her expression she's bored to pieces. Bella loves getting ahold of her ears and tugging on them. Penny is patient. We can't wait until Bella is older - they're going to be best friends!

quackie

Kimberly gave Bella this cute little duck. It quacks! Bella just loves the quack and whenever we were out and about and Bella got a little fussy, we'd squeeze the duck and it would quack and Bella would laugh. Duckie got dirty so I rinsed a bit of it under the water...and since then the duck has gone quackie - literally! The duck quacks randomly and often! It's hilarious and I love thinking about the dogs, home alone with the crazy, possessed duck! Quack!

eyes

Bella visited Dr. Lai, a pediatric ophthalmologist, and was diagnosed with mild ocular albinism and persistent papillary membrane. PPM is not a big deal; it's basically a small cataract on the side of her eye. The ocular albinism is a bigger deal that we'll watch. We just need to make sure the back of her eyes continue to develop so she can see clearly.

Of course it took me a few minutes after he said it and thought, "OMG - she's an albino!" but she's really not. Then I thought of this student that I saw in a public school who was an albino and had lots of vision problems. She had a wide gait so she walked differently and couldn't read, not that she wasn't bright, but because she couldn't see. Her eyes wiggled back and forth constantly and she wore glasses, but it was apparent that the glasses didn't do much...but they did make her look cute! Anyway, we're on the look out for shaking or crossed eyes. I'm not so worried and keep assuring myself that it's a mild case.

6 month check-up at 7 months

Statistics
Weight: 16 pounds - 7 ounces, 50th %ile
Height: 26 inches, 25th %ile
Head Circumference: 44 cm, 75th %ile

She's short with a big head...but I'm sure that will change! She's been waking up at night to eat so I'm thinking that a growth spurt is impending. Dr. Kinalska saw a spec on her eye so we're going to a pediatric ophthalmologist to get it checked out.

Grandma & Grandpa are visiting so Bella is getting all kinds of attention during the day at home with my mom. Pictures to follow!

almost crawling

Bella is almost crawling! She's been dragging herself for a couple of weeks, but now she's figuring out how to lift her body with her knees.

In anticipation of all the playing on the floor, we bought a new rug! It matches everything and looks good, but it's a little busy but since it'll be good for covering stains, we're keeping it.

Friday, Bella will be 7 months old! We've missed her 6 month check up so we don't have any stats to share right now but here's what life is like now:

• sleeps through the night (8 pm to 6 am...and if you nurse her and let her lay in bed with you, then she'll sleep until 8 am)
• nurses 3-4 times a day, but we're attempting to reduce it to 2-3 times a day
  
• eats cereal, fruit, vegetables and meat. She likes everything, but meat which has to be mixed with something else.
• she does not take naps, but who cares if she sleeps through the night!
• she has dry patches of skin on her left cheek and chin from sucking her thumb (the constant wetness made her skin chapped)
• sits up without falling over
• she likes Penny! Penny is so good with her!
• she's starting to be concerned when strangers hold her
  

Luau

We attended a Pink Panther Lounge (my bowling team) Luau Saturday night. No, it wasn't as amazing as John & Ashley's real vacation in Hawaii, but it was pretty fun!

Here's a video of Bella with Whitney.

It's Falling!

Can you believe it? It's getting slightly cooler and school has begun. School started back 2 weeks ago so we're now in the swing of things. I have a great schedule that allows me to stay at home with Bella some mornings if I want to...and most mornings I want to.

At daycare, Bella has adjusted nicely to new staff. She's no longer the baby as another younger boy has joined the group. There are 4 others that are about a year old and walk! So...Bella's very jealous, but also very motivated to move around. She sits up on her own and can almost crawl. She drags her body across the floor using her upper arm strength! She moves her knees and legs but she hasn't figured out how to make them support weight. If pulling herself along the floor is too slow, then she just rolls and rolls until she gets where she thinks she wants to go. Bella is also eating a lot of baby food. We're introducing her to all kinds of foods. She, like her mom, likes all vegetables. The first time we gave her meat she screamed! hee, hee. We figured out that if we mix it with peas then she'll eat it. By the way, wiping meat off her face, hands, head is really gross! It's balls up and just moves around. Nasty meat!

Matt has a project! He'll be traveling to Mexico and learning Spanish. It sounds great except for the part about leaving me to pick up, feed, bathe and put Bella to bed every Tuesday and Thursday night on my own. I'm going to have to do some negotiating to make this even out.