Lazy Weekend

Last week was particularly challenging for me. Not only was I on my own with Matthew out of town, but Ally decided to revert back to her pre-Zantac days and fight me on every single bottle I tried to feed her. She's been doing reasonably well of late and has even had a few great days where she actually downed 30 oz of milk- which is in the acceptable range for a gal her size. Last week was a different story however. She would take an ounce or two of her bottle with no problem then start in on the back arching, screaming, crying and general carrying on as I tried unsuccessfully to force the bottle into her mouth. It is quite stressful on both of us and usually results in some tears on my part by the end of the day. Poor Matthew called on Wednesday night to check in on us and caught me in the middle of a breakdown. So much for holding down the fort while he was away! We were all relieved when he returned home on Friday night. Thankfully there are no more travel plans in his future and Ally has improved a little bit since he's been home. Maybe she was just upset that he was gone too and decided to express her displeasure by being a difficult eater.

In an attempt to encourage her to actually swallow some solids, I introduced her to bananas this past weekend. She liked the sweet potatoes and carrots that we've tried so far, but she hasn't gotten over the expulsion reflex so she still thrusts the food out of her mouth with her tongue. Bananas were a big hit! I mashed them up with some baby cereal and breast milk and I think half of them actually made their way into her stomach. The other half still ended up on her bib, face, hands, hair, etc. It was progress though. At this point I'm only experimenting with solids once a day because it's such a mess. As soon as she starts taking in more of the food we'll increase that to 2 or 3 servings a day. I may also be doing 2-3 loads of laundry a day!

A few other fun things have occurred over the past few days: Ally did a 360 degree roll on top of our bed the other day and she realized she can really cover some ground that way. I imagine rolling will become her primary mode of transport shortly until she figures out how to crawl. We're going to have to start watching her like hawks! Ally also passed a toy from one hand to the other several times over the weekend. She's developing better hand eye coordination every day! Finally, Ally discovered that her toes can go in her mouth- along with every other object she can get her hands on- and that they provide endless entertainment. She's constantly grabbing them, especially during diaper changes!

We had a nice relaxing family weekend. On Saturday, Matthew and I didn't get dressed until after noon and Ally stayed in her pajamas all day long! We were so lazy and it was awesome! We did take the dogs to the beach in the afternoon but it was overcast, windy and cool so we just left Ally in her jammies so she'd be covered up. By the time we got home it was after 3pm and it seemed silly to waste clean clothes at that point since we weren't planning to go out at all. Ray, Dee, and Matthew's grandmother Jody came over for dinner on Saturday night. I cooked Matthew's favorite meal; gnocchi with a disgustingly rich cream sauce. It's good, but it's so heavy and rich that I couldn't eat my full portion. He enjoyed it though and so did our guests so that's all that matters. On Sunday we went to church, had brunch with Bonnie and hung out watching football- I love lazy weekends!

Ally zonked out in her highchair at dinner one night.

Ally was ready to go to the beach on a brisk Saturday afternoon!

All dressed up for church in a sweet little dress.

If you look very closely you can see her teeth in this picture!

Boom- over she goes!