Hair bows, standing, and more

Finally, after about 6 months of being a pretty bald baby and 5 months of being a really short haired baby, Gabriella has enough hair for a bow! And she actually leaves them in. She looks so cute in them and we already have enough to match every possible outfit in her dresser!

While the hair bows are absolutely exciting, more importantly, Gabriella has started pulling herself up to stand. This is huge for her. Our birth to 3 goals had a goal set for her to crawl and pull herself up to stand by January. The fact that she is doing this now is amazing and we are so happy.

She does do quite a bit of "w" sitting, where her legs flare out to either side of her body instead of being  tucked under her bottom so our physical therapist is working with her to help break that habit. It's not great for her hips and is due to weak abdominal muscles. It's a fairly common "problem" with preemies; again due to the fact that she never had to curl up in fetal position while in utero but there are a lot of techniques to fix it. This week her PT will be teaching up how to use kinesio tape on her abdomen to help strengthen her core.  She won't feel it at all, she can still bathe with it, and it gets changed every 3 days. Runners often use it on their feet and knees with good results so we'll see if it helps her!

Stock photo of kinesio tape on infants

And finally, my mom and I decided to do a little sewing and sell some things on Etsy! We are making baby accessories such as bibs, bow ties, and head bands. We are just getting started and have a few things up for sale! There will be many more items listed soon!  Check us out at www.etsy.com/shop/littlebabybiglove


xo,
Mary

11 months!

Gabriella is 11 months old today which means this will be her last monthly update as an infant! I can't believe her next update will be her 1 year. How fast a year can go by!

Clearly the 11 month sticker wasn't happening! She ripped it off, tried to eat it, and eventually lost all interest and it ended up on her bum. This week has been a bit of a tiring one with Gabriella getting the hand, foot, and mouth virus.  It caused a fever, stomach issues, and a blistery rash on her face and in her mouth. Sad, sad, week over here!

Besides that, month 10 brought crawling! Gabriella is officially all over the place, getting into everything, and starting to try and pull up on things. She has started eating more textured foods and we are pureeing her food less. She loves feeding herself so mealtimes are messy.

I also want to take time to wish my sister Diane, a very happy 28th birthday!! Gabriella loves her Tia and Tio Alex and we are so happy to have you both nearby. Cheers to a wonderful year!! This week Ben also turned 2 months old so we created what may be the best collage ever...

Could Ben be any cuter??? That smile!!!

I'll end with a look back at all of her monthly photos....

xo,
Mary

Catch me if you can!

And she's on the move!!  Gabriella is officially a crawler. She is all over the place, usually bypassing all of her toys for remote controls, the fireplace, picture frames, and tables. The girl likes to live life on the wild side. After a few mini heart attacks and me saying, "Gianni! Our house is a death trap!", we've moved a lot of things, covered sharp edges, and made our house pretty baby proof. But, she is quick and every minute we discover new things that she can pull, grab, eat, break, and throw. It's a work in progress! We figure we'll be totally baby proof by the time she's 16.

This weekend we celebrated two first birthdays. The first was for Riley, another NICU baby. She was also born at exactly 26 weeks and 2 days gestation and also weighed 2 pounds 2 ounces. Riley's family was so kind to us and so supportive, especially during the first few traumatic and critical weeks. Seeing her turn one was so emotional! The second was for some of our best friends' daughter. We thought the girls would be almost 6 months apart not 6 weeks!  I can not believe that we will be celebrating a first birthday next month. Time truly flies by!

Gabriella is going through a sleeping transition. Up until about a week or two ago, she was very easy to put down for naps and for bed but now it's become a little more difficult. It takes her longer to settle down at night and she is going to bed a bit later. Nap times have also become a struggle. She was doing 2 90 minute naps a day but now it seems like she is slowly moving towards one nap a day. It seems so soon but several friends have told me that their kids moved to one nap a day around a year so we'll see what happens.

I hope everyone had a relaxing Labor Day weekend! I can't believe summer is (un)officially over!

xo,
Mary