A few days ago, I was eating some Tres Leches birthday cake my mom brought over and Ava was eyeballing like no other. She watched every move as I put the fork to the cake to my mouth. Oh and I saw my mom try to sneak Ava a bit of frosting. Tisk Tisk Oma! So needless to say we tried another feeding! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

She pushed the cereal out of her mouth.

Cry for help to Daddy! But Daddy is the photographer so no help to baby!

Also, here is Ava with her new organic maple teether which she LOVES! She can grip it better than the plastic teether she has and I don't have to worry about plastics. Obviously, this little piece of wood was outrageously expensive but a few pieces here and there won't break the bank.



Food for Baby Thought

The subject of baby food honestly makes me nervous. I want to feed Ava the most natural and organic way possible and I'd like to try to make our own baby food with a processor. I've read articles on tips and how to cook the food and what foods to try first and when and frankly, I feel a bit overwhelmed by it all. But like everything parenting requires, I can only do my best. I wanted to wait until 6 months to try foods since breastmilk is the only nutrition baby actually needs up until that point.

But since Ava has sprouted her first bottom tooth at 4 1/2 months old I thought hmmm maybe this is going to come quicker than I thought. So while in Henry's Market I picked up a box of organic wild brown rice cereal and a pack of baby spoons. I come home (since she is offically teething, I left her home with Rafal much to his dismay) and mix up cereal with breastmilk while Rafal sees how she takes the spoon. She can put her lips around it and smacks. Good sign. When it comes time for cereal, Ava makes the most awful face. She squints her eyes and purses her lips together, pushing out the tiny amount of cereal that actually got into her mouth! A funny sight, I'm sure. Rafal giving her position reinforcements say "Yum, Baby Yum!" A few bites later, we are done.

Consensus is: She's not ready. Which is fine. The last thing I want is to push her to do things she isn't prepared for. Granted she is growing a tooth but that by no means implies she's ready to eat. The best thing I can do is look for cues she gives and start slowly. One food at a time. I do not mind if it takes her 2 more months to accept food. I will wait with her. And in the mean time, I'm going to watch her tooth come in!

First Post!

How exciting! I have enough time on my hands to blog about my life. Well let me be honest and say its not at all interesting but I figure I can document the milestones of Ava's infancy and we all know babies are just so cute.

First let us rewind about 5 months so I can recount the most sacred of times- Ava's Birth Story! Alright, here we go...

I knew about the middle of my pregnancy I wanted to experience a natural birth. Now let me state I would never consider giving birth at home or in a tub, that's just not what I'm about. But I did my research on the subject of childbirth and I came to the conclusion that natural was the best for the baby. So that was the plan. I read countless birthstories online and watch a documentary our Doula gave us and I felt ready. I was due January 13th and around the middle of December I was done. I knew I could not go that long. I couldn't sleep. Since I have scoliosis my back hurt during the night if I slept on my side. Anyone who knows, knows you cannot sleep on your back after about the 5th month due to the blood flow being cut off by the baby laying on a vessel. So I walked (well I tried) and had the membranes swept (much against my mom's wishes as she thought I would go into labor within 2 minutes and "The poor baby isn't ready!" were her words)Finally, on NYE I felt something. Hallelujah! I now call these practice contractions because nothing happened until 3 days later on January 3rd. Monday morning I wanted to go to the hospital. So we went.

The nurse hooked me up to an IV to hydrate me. Within a hour I became sick and started to throw up. I was sick, tired, and since I didn't eat breakfast, hungry. Oh great, this is how it was going to go. So I labored and labored. Our Doula came in with snacks and a bag of goodies that would speed up the process by guiding the baby down and out. Only problem was that I could not muster any strength to get up off the bed. I felt so weak and tired. Thankfully my OBGYN let me labor at my own speed and not push pitocin on me. I cannot recall the time span but this pain felt like it was going on forever and I couldn't get passed 3cm. I begrudgingly walked the hall and took a few showers which momentarily relieved the pain. Once I hit 7cm at 2am I was done. I said "This is a disaster" and OBGYN just laughed at me. I requested my epidural. Yes, I caved. But I am not sorry. After it set in, I could finally relax and enjoy the anticipation of meeting my baby. Around 6ish Tuesday morning, I felt funny and the nurse checked me when she said "Uh oh, hold your legs together, your baby is coming!" As I've said before, Ava just slipped out. No tearing or tugging. I was so thankful. She was here. No complications or stress on her. Rafal on the other hand slipped into what I call a baby coma and disapeared from the world for an hour. Ava was perfect and she latched on for milk within the first 10 minutes of meeting her. My girl.


BabyFace

She was jaundiced and had to stay a extra night on the billibed. This was the worst. I have no baby knowledge and all of it scared me. I just wanted to go home and cuddle her in my own room. Also, I had a spinal headache and was on a high dosage of ibuprophen every 4 hours. I seriously wanted out of there. Thursday afternoon, we went finally home.