Happy Birthday Piper!!

Today marked Piper's 7 month birthday! Here is her latest "thing".

WHAT!?!?

yesterday morning, pipe was happily playing on the floor in her room...when i took that opportunity to run to the bathroom to put my contacts in....2 minutes later...this is how i found her!!!!!!!


PULLING UP!!!! seriously piper!!! PULLING UP!!! you are such a big girl!!!!

our little sweet potato....

our second attempt at sweet potatos...



enough said!!... ;)

teething...

wow! we are in the mist of a teething little girl!...how do i know?...

A)something very sharp lying right under the gums...cant see much...but you sure can feel it!
B)serious crankiness (as shown by the 30 minutes i just spent with a screaming baby...who could not even be soothed with nursing!)
C)runny nose (i think this is a sign??)
D)major drooling!
E)green poops (and no she is not even close to eating enough food for her poops to change)
F)mommy being turned into a human teether!

ok mom blog followers....since i now know its coming...any advice for nursing a baby/toddler with teeth!!??

Poem for Piper....

Tater...
she was a Tater
for a little while
then she came into the world
and made her family smile

even before she
had donned her first diaper
she received a new name
her parents called her Piper

as she grows up
in faith, hope and love
she'll be known forever
as a gift from God above

there will come a day when sooner or later
you will tell this precious girl
how she was once called Tater

by Joe A. Jones


I can not even express the emotion i felt when this poem was read to me! Just the idea that someone put such thought into these sweet words about my little girl just overwhelms me!! My father-in-law teaches a Sunday school class (ok to be honest his class is larger then some small churches!) at our church and a bible study on Tuesday morning that this man, the author, Joe Jones is in. My father-in-law called Piper...tater...almost from day one that we were expecting...so thats where that comes from :) by the way...Joe is publishing a book of poems soon!!!

bananas....yummmmmm

giving piper food had been a big topic among family and friends here lately so i thought that i would tell everyone what we have decided to do :) we obviously wanted to do the best thing for her...we want her to grow up loving yummy healthy foods and not grow up pron to processed foods and we were obviously not ready for her to wean...not even close. i have done a lot of Internet reading, book reading and i have even been to a class on starting solids and we plan on mostly just reading Pipers cues. The best information i have gotten is from a book called "the womanly art of breastfeeding" and the La Leche League. Basically they say that the starting of solids is something that happens in the second half of the baby's first year of life...but once the baby turns 6 months old, not to watch the clock...but watch for "readiness signs" which would be....
-the ability to sit up without support
-absence of the tongue-thrust reflex(meaning baby does not automatically push solids out of her mouth with her tongue)
-mastered the pincer-grasp
-increased nursing
Babies usually hit these milestones between 6 to 8 months. In breast-feed baby's there is no need for the tasteless-processed rice cereal...they can go right to the good stuff :) some of the best first foods to try are ripe mashed banana, ripe mashed avocado and cooked mashed sweet potato. There is also no need for jarred foods (or if your baby is old enough there is even no need to mash or puree!). And of course to always try to nurse before feeding foods as your breast milk is your baby's main source of nuturion the first year...nothing can replace the amazing food that God designed!! :)
All that being said.....we gave piper a taste of banana last Saturday night!!!!!!! I'm not sure if she is completely ready, and she didn't seem to like it too much. But i have been giving her little tastes each day of my morning banana...she will take 2 or 3 bites before she gets completely un-interested and starts to push it away.Last night we even gave her a few (baby)spoon fulls of sweet potato that i had frozen is ice cubes...it all came right back out of her mouth and all over her bumbo and clothes...so to me that means either a)she still has the tongue-thrust and is not quite ready or b)she does not like it :) for now will will continue to just give her banana every once in a while and continue to follow her cues :)
WOW that was a lot of info most people probably don't care about...but that is what we are doing...and of course the video....

lesson in parenting...

the day piper turned 6 months old was a Sunday... It being such a special day, i dressed Piper up in the sweetest pink and black striped shirt with a bow and black leggings...before we left we looked in the mirror and i told her how beautiful she looked :) When we got to church as usual piper was sitting on my lap as i Internet surfed while daddy was running around getting ready for the morning...all of a sudden i "feel" her pooping i immediately stand up to go get her bag to change her...the second i stood up i looked down and.....poop was oozing out the back of her leggings...i am not joking...oozing!! I panicked!!!! I yelled for Jake and told him we had a major crisis!! we ran out of the room *like crazy-first-time-parents-style* took her to a Sunday school class room and stripped her down! At this point her beautiful pink and black striped shirt and leggings were COVERED in poop! It took practically an entire tub of wipes to clean her up...by this point i realized...being the mother of the year that i am...that i did not have a change of clothes with me!!!!!!!! I have never carried around a change of clothes with me!?! In 6 months, nothing like this has ever happened!?! I *in tears* looked to Jake and told him that i had to take this precious *poopie* little naked girl out in the freezing cold to take her home for new clothes :( when Jake reminded me just to run down to the nursery, they have reserve clothes for this very occasion! OHHH thank goodness!!! So *naked* piper and i go to the nursery...and this is what the had for my little birthday girl....


I was a little embarrassed to think that people were thinking i was the kind of mom, that puts her beautiful little girl in a blue, over sized, Eskimo Joe's, sweatshirt onsie for church (i promise im not!)....but at the same time overwhelmed with gratitude to the lades at the nursery front desk who helped a un-prepared momma in a time of need (they are blog readers...so THANK YOU!!)...so the lesson....
-always have an extra set of clothes with you...ALWAYS!! :)

by the way...i still thought she was beautiful!! :)