"WHO" Percentiles

I found this handy little chart today on the CDC website that has weight and length-for-age percentiles for breast fed (BF) baby girls.  This is called a "WHO" chart.  The pediatrician's office combines formula fed (FF) and BF babies charts all into one.  So the results can be a little skewed.

The WHO chart that I found actually shows Marissa's weight percentiles to be higher when compared to other BF baby girls.  On the FF/BF chart, she is currently in the 38th percentile but on the WHO chart she is actually closer to the 50th percentile range, which I think is great!  Her current height on the pedi's chart shows her in the 66th percentile range but on the WHO chart she is in the 75th percentile.  So I think she's doing well on momma's milk!  Not that her scores were bad on the chart the pedi uses, but this reflects a little bit more accurate information and compares her to other girls her age that are BF. 

As a mom, you often wonder if you are feeding your child enough, are they getting everything they need, are you producing enough milk?  I've noticed that the other baby at Marissa's daycare is formula fed.  He drinks 8 ounce bottles at a time, whereas Marissa only drinks 6 ounce bottles at a time (and sometimes it's like force feeding her to finish that).  I started questioning myself and wondering if I should be giving her more.  So I did a little research about BM composition.  A lot of what I have read indicates that BM actually changes over time (I had heard this from lactation consultants but had never done any of my own research on the topic).  The fat content increases which provide all the nutrients your baby needs to grow, without having to add additional ounces (like FF babies).  But many women start to believe that they aren't producing enough milk, so they subsequently start to supplement with formula.  I found a lot of this information to be helpful and informative.  Of course, if Marissa needs more ounces and if she is showing she is still hungry, I will give it to her, but it does help to kind of understand what it is my body is doing.  And that it might actually be doing what it's supposed to be doing!  Whew.

::Disclaimer - if I need to give her formula, I will, but it's more of a last resort for me, just because she is doing so well right now that I don't want to mess anything up.::

It's easy to second guess yourself and I am constantly struggling to ensure I'm making enough for Marissa; I often measure my worth in ounces.  Unfortunately, a lot of things come into play with milk production, like: how much rest you have gotten, how much water you are drinking, your monthly cycle, stress, your diet, how often you pump/nurse, etc. etc.  I guess I have a hard time when people make passive aggressive comments about Marissa needing more food because she is BF.  It's hard to not take comments like that to heart.  There is such a thing as over feeding a baby.  Just seeing her numbers on paper and seeing that her growth is right on track gives me a little more assurance that I'm doing what's right for us.  People who have never BF long term don't really understand, I guess. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is I have a love/hate relationship with BFing.  I will be happy when I can ditch the pump, but it will be bittersweet when Marissa is weaned.  My plan right now is to make it to at least 1 year.  Before I had Marissa my plan was to make it to at least 6 months.  Here we are at 7 months, I've reached my initial goal and each month that I can continue to BF is worth the internal struggles I go through.  :)

In other news, we are headed to the Valley to see my parents this weekend!  It's been a long over due visit, so I'm excited.  I may also stop in to see a friend and her baby who was born on Valentine's Day.  Hopefully I don't get baby fever again. :o)

Crafting It Up!

Over the weekend I took a trip to Hobby Lobby to get supplies for Marissa’s 1st Birthday. I got all of the paper I need to make the invitations and decorations for her party. We are doing a pink lady bug theme! I was originally going to keep the details hush, hush…but since I’m making most of the decorations, no one can really copy me since they are unique and handmade!

I’ve started on the invitations and I like how they have turned out. The wings open up and the party details are inside. We are keeping her party small, just close family and friends. I’m going to do food, cake and ice cream. Hopefully the weather will be nice so we can be outside on the back deck, but if not, we can mingle inside, too.

The invite:

Inside of invite:

Sign that we will hang on the back door:

I am also planning on making a high chair banner, food labels, a Birthday Banner and some other decorations for around the house. 

I know it seems a bit premature to be planning already, but I know with Spring and Summer coming we will be busy and I won’t have time to devote to sitting down and getting everything done. I might as well do it while I have time so I’m not stressing at the last minute. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m OCD and like to party plan and do things early!



This weekend we are heading to my parents. My dad is on a “dig” and I don’t know if he will be back while we are there or not. He found a Confederate States Belt Buckle this week, which is pretty big! I can’t wait to see it and get all the details on his big find. He has been going on these digs for a few years now and this is his first time finding a buckle like this. For those of you who don’t know, my dad is an avid civil war relic hunter!



We are going to take Eli and Sadie to my parents for a few weeks. My parents have a huge yard where they can run and play, so we’re going to let them stay there to get some exercise and live the farm life. We will be picking them up on Easter weekend when we come back up to my parents. Since we will be going to Williamsburg in a few weekends, this will help us from having to find a dog sitter while we are gone.

Marissa will be 7 months old tomorrow! Where has the time gone?



Weekend Getaway!

Some friends of ours just bought a timeshare in Williamsburg, VA.  The timeshare has a referral program and they referred us for a free weekend stay.  We are going down April 8th - 10th and I'm so excited!  We have to attend a 1 hour seminar on the timeshare/resort (where they will inevitably try to convince us to buy a share).  The weekend is free, whether we buy the timeshare or not, which we aren't.  We're using this as an excuse to get a FREE weekend away and have a little fun!  Our friends who bought the timeshare went down with the same intention as us, a free weekend, but they ended up loving what they had to offer and went ahead and purhchased.  They said it was a bit of an impulse buy, but they are still happy with their decision.  We will not, I repeat, not be impulse buying a timeshare.  Sure it would be nice, but we're focusing on other things right now.

For one, I just upped my retirement contributions.  I had been meaning to for awhile and I finally got around to it.  I think Danny and I are making great decisions for our future, which feels good!

Danny and I are also talking about some remodeling or starting some projects around the house.  We would really like to either a) build a car port attached to the side of the house or b) start to finish off the basement.  Both would be nice, but we're trying to figure out which would give us a better return if/when we go to sell our house.  The extra living space would be nice, but part of our yard on the side of the house (where the car port would go) is starting to wash out from rain, the dogs and just normal wear and tear.  We kind of feel like we should get that taken care of before the problem gets worse.  But then we might be running into part of the deck and we're not sure if we would need to remodel the deck in order to make the car port work.  Decisions, decisions!  Danny's dad knows a contractor that built his garage/car port combo and he's going to talk to him to see if they could come out and give us an estimate.

I also would really like to put ceramic tiles in our kitchen (mom, if you are reading this...you are up for the job, right? hehe).

We would like to get new countertops in the kitchen and update the cabinet hardware.

So many things we want to do!

So Many Pictures, So Little Time

I took over 100 pictures this weekend and I want to share them all!  I just don't have enough time, so this will have to do...

I love, love, LOVE this photo!  These two are my whole world!

How cute is this dress?

One of my favorite spots, the rocking chair on the front porch.  

Sitting in the grass for the first time!

Trying to eat a leaf.  Silly girl. 

Daddy's girl.

Already showing her the playstation remote...oh boy!

Love baby feet.

Daddy and Marissa

Not too often we get pictures together. :)

Sadie Bear giving love to Marissa.

Marissa and I went to the park in our neighborhood.  She was having so much fun swinging!

Weeee!

Every time I said "weeee" she would give me one of these faces!

She didn't go down the slide, this was more or less just a photo op.

Attacking Eli Gator!

That's all I have time for tonight.  I've been up since 5:30 am, need some much needed beauty rest!

Clap, Clap..Clap Your Hands!

Marissa has learned how to clap!  We've been playing Pat-a-cake and she seems to have caught on.  I love watching her learn new things.  We are still working on waving and Peek-a-boo!

Today my friend Sophie came over for a cloth diaper tutorial.  Hopefully I was able to answer any questions she had and is a little more comfortable with moving forward into the cloth diaper world.  I counted my diapers today and I think I have almost 50.  My addiction is worse than initially realized.  It's all for a good cause, right?  And we *might* have two in cloth at some point, so I'll need that many.  Right?  Right??  I'm trying to justify my addiction, can you tell?  I got on a custom Working At Home Moms (WAHM) cloth diaper list.  I'm hoping to find the perfect diaper for Marissa's 1st birthday! :)

Today has been a lazy Sunday.  Lazy Sunday's usually involve Food Network and me running to the grocery store to get some goodies to satisfy my cravings.  Today it looks like it's buttermilk onion rings and air heads that have my mouth watering.  MmmMmm!

Marissa is still saying "Dada" a lot.  It's her favorite (only) word and she says it all the time.  It's truly adorable, though I am still slightly jealous that she hasn't said Mama yet.  I have now had two people tell me an old wives tale...

The old wives tale goes that if your first child's first word is "Dada" that means your next child will be a boy.  If your first child's first word is "Mama" then your next child will be a girl.

The cool part about this is we will get to put this old wives tale through the test!  Our friend's Mickey and Jeremy have a little boy, Hunter.  His first word was Mama.  Since Marissa's first word was Dada, we will see if our next child will be a boy.  I know Mickey and Jeremy would love to have a little girl and we would like to have a little boy.  So time will tell if this old wives tale holds any truth.  I know it's silly and most old wives tales are just that, tales, but it's still fun to think about!

Yesterday I took Marissa to the park in our community.  I took a few pictures of her swinging and I will post them later.

....Off to the grocery store!

Happy Spring!

So Close I Can Almost Taste It

Spring, that is!  It's right around the corner and I can see my Daffodils and Irises springing up through the ground and getting ready for their big bloom.  I love the sweet smell of irises and they have the most beautiful, intricate and delicate blooms.  So if you've ever wondered why we gave Marissa the middle name of Iris, now you know. =)

Unfortunately, we desperately need to give my irises a new home.  When we purchased our house there was a little water pond and a garden right off the side of the house.  We decided that the pond was too much of an upkeep so we dug it out.  This Spring it is our plan to fill the hole where the pond was and possibly get rid of this little garden all together.  Maybe I can convince Danny that a water fountain would be less of a hassle and we can keep the irises right where they are (a water fountain sounds like a wonderful Mother's Day present, don'tchathink?).  They do need to be thinned out though, they multiply as the years go by and the quality of the blooms start to degrade when they are choking each other out. 

I'm thinking something like this from Lowe's would look beautiful!

I may have to put a little birdy in Danny's ear.

It's supposed to be 80 degrees this Friday so I'm hoping the rest of the weekend is just as beautiful.  We are planning on cleaning out our closets and doing some (much needed) Spring cleaning.  This would also be a perfect time for Danny to trim the bushes in the front of the house and do some yard work (much to his delight, ha, ha, ha...rrrriiiight). 

We have a trip to the DC Zoo planned in May.   I will be meeting up with a few new mom friends and I'm excited to meet them!  I can't wait to take Marissa for her first time.  As sad as this is, my first time to the zoo was for my 22nd birthday!  Every boyfriend I ever had promised to take me to the zoo, the only one that followed through was Danny, who later became my husband!  I knew I picked him for a reason. ;-)  Here's a few pictures from our trip!

There's a little bit of talk about a cruise in our future with my BIL/SIL.  The plan is for the November time frame which will be perfect since our anniversary is in November.  We'll see if anything comes of the plans, but a cruise sounds splendid right now!

Speaking of "so close"...as of last week I am officially 2 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy (PP) weight!  I'm still not quite fitting into all of my PP jeans, it seems my hips still think I'm pregnant.  Judge away, but losing all the baby weight just hasn't been on my top priority list.  Ideally, I would like to be down about another 6 pounds, but I'm not going to stress, starve or lose sleep over it!

This Sunday my friend Sophie is going to come over for a cloth diaper tutorial!  I'm excited to share my wealth of information.  She has gotten some negative feedback from others about cloth diapering, which seems to be pretty typical.  I hope that after seeing the diapers in action, she can at least make an educated decision about cloth diapering.  And if she decides it's not for her, at least she didn't make a presumptuous decision based on lack of knowledge or ignorance.

Head on over to the Eco Friendly Family Blog to enter in a giveaway for a FREE Planet Wise Wetbag!

http://www.theecofriendlyfamily.com/2011/03/planet-wise-wetdry-bag-review-and.html



Standing Tall and a Video

Marissa can now hold onto the crib and stand up by herself.  She hasn't pulled herself up yet but she will stand there if you put her up to it.  It's so cute.

The baby sitter called in sick today.  She was running a fever.  I stayed home with Marissa from work today.  Hopefully she is feeling better soon.  I don't want Marissa to be around her if she's sick, especially if it's the flu.

We got Marissa on video today saying "dada"...

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=974408790492