Friday, January 9, 2009

6 months old

I can't believe my baby is already 6 months old! Time just flies...

She is doing really well. She doesn't seem to be developmentally delayed at all, which I am happy about. Of course that doesn't mean anything about what the future might bring.


Stella has become quite verbal. She babbles a lot, especially when she is playing alone or is trying to get our attention. She makes the ahh and mmmm sounds often, and sometimes the b sound.We swear she can saw mama and milk :-)

Stella loves to explore her environment and will quickly reach for any toy that makes noise. She explores objects with her hands and puts them right to her mouth. She is doing better during tummy time, but still much prefers to be on her back. She does well sitting up now too (while being held) and has started to bang on objects a bit. We have started propping her up in the exer-saucer and she enjoys it for a little while. She smiles a lot and laughs when I tickle her or play blowing or kissing games with her. She loves playing peek-a-boo and sometimes will play by herself.

She is getting stronger and bigger every day. It's so fun to observe! I think she is almost ready to move up to clothing sized 6-9 months and size 3 diapers. Sleep is a bit wacky these days. She usually takes one short nap in the morning, and then a long nap in the afternoon. Sometimes if we let her she will sleep for 7 hours in the afternoon! Usually she will wake up to nurse and then fall back asleep. I think her night time is from 4pm-6am. Ahh well - at least when she sleeps she does it in long chunks.

Her therapy seems to be moving right along, although both Marla & I would love to see her rolling over soon! The trips to the ocularist continue to be difficult, but the conformers are doing their job.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas

Stella had a wonderful first Christmas. She had no idea what was going on of course, but she happily laid on the floor while the rest of us opened presents. She was eager to explore every new object we put next to her. She was a great little traveler - sleeping the entire way to and from Michigan, and she loved visiting with all the relatives and being passed around. In fact, she was spoiled - by the end of the trip she didn't want to be put down. I think she must have missed her play gym though, because the first time I put her under that when we were back home she got so excited.

Stella got some really neat presents:

- A handmade quilt with fabrics of different textures. It also has her name embroidered in braille and made out of detachable stuffed fabric.

- A vtech move & crawl ball

- A Baby Stella doll

- Lots of cute taggies stuff

- A Safe Sippy cup

- A Munchkin Mozart music cube (she loves banging on this)

- Various books, rattles, blankets and clothing

First Food

Stella had her first food today, other than breast milk. I'm being aggressive about introducing her to new foods because I know that eating can be difficult for some blind children, and I'm hoping that having her experience a variety of tastes and textures from a young age will encourage her to enjoy eating.


I started with rice cereal - a typical first food for infants. I mixed it with breast milk and offered it to her from my finger. I held it to her lips and she stuck her little tongue out and licked the cereal. She must have enjoyed it because she grabbed my finger and pushed it into her mouth and sucked all the cereal off. It was so cute! Except for dipping my finger in the cereal for refills, I let Stella do everything else. She wanted more and more - her chin, cheeks, nose and fingers ended up covered in the stuff. Hopefully this is a good sign regarding her relationship with food and feeding.