Merry Christmas!

Lots of fun things are going on in Willow's world these days. On Tuesday she turned 7 months old corrected. 7 months has been a very fun age so far. Everything's hilarious to Willow lately. She laughs constantly - the cutest little distinct "ha"s. "ha. ha. haha." She'll just look at you and bust out laughing. It sort of makes you think, "am I really that funny-looking?"

We changed Willow's sleeping arrangements this week. We took away the bedside "arm's reach co-sleeper" and moved her crib into our bedroom.















We decided she was getting too heavy for the cosleeper. It just has a thin, hard mattress, like the type they have in pack-and-plays. Her crib has a nice cushy mattress in comparison. She hasn't been using the crib as much as we thought she would though; ever since she started breastfeeding, she's been waking up once during the night to eat. I don't know if that's the reason, or if it's just coincidence, but it sure does make it convenient - no getting up, going downstairs, warming a bottle...I just bring her into our bed and feed her. She usually stays there a couple hours until I wake up again and put her back in the crib. It works out well and we enjoy it. I'm a very light sleeper and we've taken precautions so she doesn't fall off the bed or get smothered. I think bedsharing is a good thing for parents who work full time; it gives you that much more time to bond with and be close to your baby. This photo was taken after we got back from a party Christmas Eve - Josh fell asleep with Willow while I was getting ready for bed, but she was still wide awake.















Of course I'm very happy that Willow finally learned how to breastfeed (at 9 1/2 months old - that must be a record!); however the flip side is that it's a little ironic...I was just about ready to wind down the pumping and start giving Willow milk from our stash in the basement - 2 chest freezers full. Now that she's breastfeeding, I'm not pumping much anymore except for at work, but none of the frozen milk is getting used...and it probably won't. It'll probably end up expiring and we'll have to toss it. All that work, time and effort that went into saving it all...well, I guess it's best not to think about that.

The eating is going better. Willow will now usually willingly open her mouth for her food. She's tried cereal, sweet potatoes and avocadoes so far. We're just doing it once a day for now.

Willow's next physical therapy appointment is next week. She still refuses to roll over from back to front. She hates tummy time so much that if you put her on her tummy, she immediately rolls to her back:



Our Christmas was wonderfully relaxed. It was so great to have a 4-day weekend! No travelling for us this year; we stayed home. We attended a couple Christmas parties and brought Willow. We're starting to loosen up a bit about bringing her places. It's so fun to bring her places and let her get a little attention from people! I feel like I've missed out on "showing her off" since we've never brought her very many places yet. Christmas day, we delivered meals for Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly and brought Willow. It was actually her second volunteering experience - a couple weeks ago we delivered boxes of food to elderly people and brought her then too. Not surprisingly, the old people love Willow. Here's a pic we took in Heritage Manor after visiting a couple ladies. Notice Willow's LBFE nametag. :)















We opened a few gifts from each other at our house. We used our grapefruit tree as our Christmas tree this year.


















We got Willow Sophie the giraffe.















She immediately knew what Sophie is for.
















Scouty and Daria got presents too, of course.


















Then we went over to my parents' house for Christmas dinner and more presents. Willow was spoiled as expected. Josh's family is coming up next week, and then the spoiling will really begin!

I guess the biggest news of the week is that Willow said her first word on Christmas. And the first word is....drum roll please...poo poo! Yes, her first word is poo poo. Sigh. I was changing her diaper and said poo poo at some point, and Willow, very quietly but very distinctly, said "poo poo". I couldn't believe it. It's not like that's even a word we say very often. We've been trying to get her to say mama or dada for a long time. Instead she says poo poo. After that we kept trying to get her to say it again (imagine a group of adults repeating "poo poo" over and over again) and she did a few more times. I caught one on video, though it wasn't a very good one. It's at about the 19th second of the video.




Hopefully soon we can get her to say something else. :)

Happy New Year to everyone!