Pee Yew...

Want to make Riley laugh so hard that she snorts? It only takes one word....pee yew!!! It's the funniest thing that I've seen in a long time. I was playing with Riley and sniffing her feet and saying pee yew and she would just giggle up a storm. It was so cute that I did it over and over. She laughed every time. An hour later I looked at her and said "pee yew" and she just laughed and laughed again. Brett and I said "pee yew" about 200 times today so that we could hear her sweet giggle. I have plans to play the "pee yew game" tomorrow so I can get it on film. I'll upload it as soon as we have it. Like everything that Riley does...it's too cute not to share with the world.

On another note, Riley loves pears. Mommy doesn't love Riley's stinky poos after pears...especially when they take place at the Chops game! Last night we ventured out to the Chops game knowing that it would be past Riley's bedtime. Bad idea. She did great for the first period and then she had a blowout! Poor thing had poo all up her back. Poor mom had to try to clean her up in the bathroom with the crappiest changing station ever. Seriously. The changing station was almost smaller than Riley, didn't fold down all the way, and was in the middle of the restroom where everyone could stare at us. To top it off, there was another mommy and baby waiting to use the changing station...bring on the anxiety! After 10 minutes or so I was able to get a crying Riley cleaned up. I must have looked frazzled because I had at least two women ask me if I needed a hand. We made it through it with a cow bell and rally towel, to boot. Riley loves the cowbell and almost gave herself two concussions with it today!

Riley is so close to sitting up completely on her own. She lasted for about 3 seconds before starting to fall to the side. I've noticed that she does better if she is focused on one of her toys. She seems to stay upright longer. I really only have to support her with a finger. She'll hold onto my finger and steady herself.

MmmMmm, Good!!

Riley loves to eat fruits and veggies! I think that she is finally understanding how to eat from a spoon. She's been leaning forward trying to get to the spoon faster. Last night she was trying to grab the bowl and spoon from me. So far she has tried applesauce, sweet potatoes, and squash. We are going to introduce pears and peaches next. Then we'll look at peas and beans. I've been able to make all of her foods myself and love it. It is a great way to save money and know exactly what I'm feeding my little girl. I bought two pears and it made 6 2 oz servings. 1/2 of a butternut squash made 10 2 oz servings! Two sweet potatoes made 8 2 oz servings. My only concern is that there is no rhyme or reason to how I'm introducing Riley's foods. I've heard to introduce green veggies first (screwed that one up already), but I've also heard to introduce sweeter veggies first since breast milk is supposed to be very sweet. I guess that I've stuck to the sweeter veggies. Hopefully I haven't screwed my child up completely! I plan to get my hands on a book this weekend.

My homemade sweet potatoes:

MMMMM:

Eating applesauce at Grandma and Grandpa Burch's:

Video of Riley

Here's the video of Riley playing with Daddy:

Riley is 5 Months Old!

Riley turned 5 months old on the 15th. It's hard to believe and time just seems to be flying by. This last month she seems to have grown so much. Riley is learning to sit and stand on her own, finding her voice, smiling and laughing, learning to grab things and pull them to her mouth, and learning to eat from a spoon. She loves to read books, be tickled under her chin and arms, playing with her aquarium and exercauser, talking to the boys at Hedy's, and ATTENTION!

It's amazing to think that she has grown 3 times her birth weight in these first 5 months. I think it's fair to say that she is an amazing baby! I would say that she has been pretty consistent with meeting her milestones in line with my original due date. Right now, we're working on sitting up without help and rolling over. She's so close to sitting on her own. I think she'll have it down in a week or two. Now, rolling over is different story. Ever since she learned that she can sit or stand she's decided that laying down (or rolling over) is for babies! I haven't told her yet, but she is a baby and she will continue to work on rolling over!

Just yesterday, we started really feeding Riley solids. We tried feeding her rice cereal on several other occasions (even though Dr. Fred said to wait until she was able to sit up) and she absolutely hated it. So, we waited a couple weeks and tried again. I made homemade applesauce and bananas. We tried the applesauce and rice cereal again. She loved it. We tried it again this morning and noticed that she broke out in a little rash on her face, head, neck, tummy, and arms. This evening when we tried solids again I left out the applesauce to see if it could have caused the rash. Nope, she still broke out in the rash. So, my only guess is that it's the rice cereal...but I'm confused, because this didn't happen before when we tried the rice cereal. Oh well, we'll be waiting a few days to rule out any other factors. A couple months ago the same thing happened when we were using baby soap with perfume in it. We changed to hypoallergenic and she's been fine ever since. I guess we just have a sensitive baby.

Here she is after eating cereal and applesauce:

Here is Riley bundling up for the coldest day in over ten years (the 15th):

**I have some video to post of Riley laughing and talking. Once I can figure out how to post it, I will.

Riley and Sambo

I think that Sam (the cat) is finally coming around. Ever since we brought Riley home he hasn't been interested in getting to know her AT ALL! Luckily we haven't had to worry about him hurting her...he just doesn't want to be near her. This all changed yesterday morning. Riley hasn't been feeling the greatest and has been pretty whiny the last couple of days - especially yesterday morning. Riley woke up very congested and her eye was still bothering her. Brett was rocking her as I sat on the ottoman trying to calm her down, but she just wouldn't settle down. After a minute or two Sam came into her room to see what was going on. When she still didn't quit crying he started meowing over and over. Then he took it a step further. He jumped up on my lap and started sniffing Riley. She started to calm down a bit and then he took it even further! He jumped up on Brett's lap and put his butt right on Riley's legs. She calmed down and just stared right at him. She even reached out to touch him.

Brett thinks he was just doing it because the crying was driving him crazy. Today you would never have guessed that Sam came that close to Riley. He's back to his "too cool for Riley" gig!

Here are a few pics of the two:

UPDATE: Eye Goobers

I took Riley to see Dr. Fred today because her eye wasn't getting any better. Poor thing. Last night was horrible for both Riley and Mom and Dad! She was whiny, stuffed up, had a constant stream of tears and yellow gunk coming from her eye, and a swollen and bloodshot eye. Needless to say, she didn't sleep from 12am-3am. Who can blame her though, really. Anyway, Dr. Fred decided to change her medication to an eye drop, as well as start an oral antibiotic. He thought that she might be starting to get an ear infection since they are common with this type of eye problem. I'm glad that we took her in and hopefully these new medications will do the trick. Maybe she'll even sleep tonight!

She weighed in at 12 lb 14 oz - over a 2 lb gain in one month! She also was 23 1/4 inches long.

A look back on 1/13/08

This very day one year ago Brett and I found out that we were expecting! I remember laying on the couch browsing the internet. For some reason I went to two different baby websites and felt the urge to take a pregnancy test. Sure enough it was positive! We were both in shock, but super excited. I remember going to Cary and Ali's house to visit Carter who had just come home from the hospital. It was really hard to hide our excitement.

It's crazy to think that was a whole year ago and now we have a beautiful baby girl!

Eye Goobers!

Saturday morning Riley woke up with an eye matted shut with some yucky green stuff. It was not a pretty sight! Right away I thought that it was pink eye. After cleaning the eye out we called Dr. Fred who called a prescription in for us. We started noticing that her eye ball wasn't red, but the inner corner of her eye was. She was also tearing up from that eye. We could really tell that she wasn't feeling the greatest because she was up every hour or two at night.

On Sunday, Riley woke up with some more green stuff in her eye. We called Dr. Fred again since it didn't appear that she was getting any better. Turns out that she had an infected tear duct. I guess a pink eye scare is a good way to get the house clean. I had most of her toys, bedding, and clothing washed and disinfected by Saturday! Today Riley woke up with less matter and was smiling and talking as usual.


Riley with her swollen eye:

She didn't let it get in the way of playing!:

Finally...Smiles Caught on Camera!

I've been trying desperately to get some photos of Riley smiling. As soon as she sees my camera she stares blankly. I would too if a strange metal things with a red light was looking back at me! So, for the last week Brett and I have been sneaking the camera out to get some smiles. Here are a couple that we managed to get:

Notice how the only two pictures that I have are from bath time!

Look Mommy, One-Handed

Lately, Riley has loved standing up. I think it might be her favorite thing to do these days. She has really become a diva with this whole sitting up and standing thing. She thinks that these are way more important than working on tummy time and rolling over. Brett and I have her do tummy time at least twice a day for about 10 minutes. She has been protesting by laying there and doing nothing, scooting herself in circles, or using her fake cry. What a diva! We even tried naked tummy time. This was a little better, but still she played the lazy act!

Protesting and scooting. She started on the blanket and scooted herself around:

Naked tummy time. Still a lazy baby, but look at her pretty blue eyes in this picture:Look Mommy, one-handed! This is more like it. Happy to be standing tall:

Riley the Super Baby

My Dad's cousin, Leah, sent Riley a very special gift...a Superman onsie! She and her family (My late Grandma Lois' family) are from Brookport, IL - just minutes from Metropolis, the home of Superman. I forgot to put Riley's headband on her so these just might be her first 'tomboy' pictures! Once again, they are too cute not to share: