I haven't updated the blog in awhile, but that's because things have been super busy around here. The weekend before last was Danny's Bachelor Party and Melanie's Bachelorette Party; this past weekend was the Couples Shower in Fredericksburg; and this coming weekend is the wedding in Marble Falls. I'll write at length about all of these events after the wedding.
In the meantime, Harper turned six months old on September 28th, which also happens to be the day that I first met Jeff SEVEN YEARS AGO! Crazy! I remember it so vividly that it seems like yesterday, but he's been a part of my life for so many years now that I honestly can't remember what my life was like before he walked into it.
Anyway, I don't have much time to write today because I have so many things to do to get ready for this weekend, but I wanted to jot down a little bit about Harper's sixth month before I forget it all!
She went to her six-month well visit on the 29th, and Dr. B is thrilled with her progress. Here are her stats:
Weight: 15 lbs. 3 oz. (between 25th and 50th percentiles)
Length: 25.75 in. (50th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16.875 in. (between 50th and 75th percentiles)
I was kind'of amazed at this, because she has clearly grown sooo much in the past two months. Which, yes, of course I already knew, but when you're with someone every single day, it's harder to really see the difference. I can't ignore her stats, however...
At her four-month checkup, she was in the 5th, 7th, and 9th percentiles for weight, length, and head circumference, meaning that 90 to 95% of four-month-old babies were bigger than she was. Now she's totally in the normal range. And when you adjust for prematurity (e.g., use her developmental age—four-and-a-half months—for the calculations instead of her actual age of six months), she's actually a pretty good-sized girl! Super tall and within the normal range of weight. For her sake, I'm hoping that ratio follows her for the rest of her life! LOL. How nice would it be to be about 5'9" and 120 lbs.?!
Dr. B was very happy with Harper's growth and thought she looked great, so that's why I was slightly shocked when he said that she should see a physical therapist.
Um…WHAT?! WHY?!
I listened to him calmly explain that Harper has a tight muscle on one side of her neck which limits her range of motion in that direction. In her case, she can turn her head completely to the right but isn't quite as flexible if you try to turn it to the left. The medical term is torticollis, which basically means "head tilt" or "wry neck," but Harper's head doesn't actually tilt; she just doesn't bend her neck to the left as easily. Anyway, there are varying degrees of torticollis—sometimes it causes kids' heads to become flattened or sloped in different places—but luckily Harper's is very slight and her head is perfectly round!
What's funny is that children with torticollis tend to look in one direction more often than the other, and as soon as Dr. B said that, I knew he was dead-on with the diagnosis. Harper has ALWAYS turned her head to the right and looked at things on her right side more than her left. I noticed it early on, but because she'd been diagnosed with ROP—and because her LEFT eye didn't fully heal as quickly as her right eye—I didn't really think anything of it. I just assumed that she tended to look to her right because she could see out of her right eye better than her left. Turns out it has to do with her tight little neck muscle. Way to go, stupid Mommy!
Of course I spent yesterday freaking out about all of this and worrying myself sick over all kinds of ridiculous possibilities only to take Harper to the physical therapist this morning and have her tell me that essentially Harper is right where she should be developmentally, here are some stretching exercises that Jeff & I should do with her at home, and we will probably only need to take her to physical therapy for a couple of months. Once a week for a couple of months, at that!
So I am relieved and my husband is enjoying every opportunity to scold me: "See? I told you everything is fine and there's no reason to worry!" Annoying, yet true.
The rest of our visit with Dr. B went really well. Harper had to get her six-month shots, but she handled them better than she did last time, so I was one proud mama. Her iron levels have almost completely normalized, so she is no longer anemic; consequently, after we polish off the current bottle, we will no longer have to give her any iron supplements. All of her tummy issues have disappeared over the past few months, so we no longer have to give her a daily antacid. Big steps in the right direction!
Big things that have happened in the past month:
- THANK GOD, we have finally established some semblance of a schedule! This is WONDERFUL for Mommy (and Daddy, too, of course, but mostly Mommy!). My favorite news is that Harper is now sleeping through the night consistently, which is amazing. This started last week. Before that, she would sleep through the night, but it was always random. She would sleep eight hours one night, wake up at 4:00 A.M. the next two nights, sleep ten hours the next night, etc. These days, she gets up whenever it starts to get light outside—somewhere around 7:30 or 8:00 A.M.—goes to sleep around 9:00 P.M., and takes two one-and-a-half- to two-hour naps somewhere in between, usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
- Harper began eating solid foods for the first time in her sixth month. We started her on rice cereal. She was, contrary to the picture below, not a huge fan. Don't let the smile fool you!
Dr. B wants us to continue trying to feed her cereal even though she doesn't seem to like it, so we've recently switched to oatmeal cereal instead of rice and are now mixing the cereal with apple juice instead of formula per his instructions. We've also started her on a few different baby foods. She likes—and by "likes," I mean "tolerates"—squash and bananas, but HATES sweet potatoes and peaches. This is baffling to me, because I insist on testing everything Harper eats before she tries it, and OMG, baby food peaches are DELICIOUS! She's crazy!
Anyway, we try to feed Harper solid foods three times a day—for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—but that doesn't always work, mainly because it's pretty much impossible to do it anywhere outside of our house right now. First, solid food feeding time involves stripping Harper down to a diaper and bib. Not exactly something we want to do in public. Plus, she is still learning to eat off of a spoon. Coupled with the fact that Harper is an extremely tactile baby, this basically means that feeding times turn into big fat messes pretty darn quick! Case in point:
Other milestones from her sixth month include:
- Grabbing objects and bringing objects to her mouth
- Touching her toes
- Doing the "Running Woman" whenever she's super excited
- Laughing—usually at Daddy
- Standing and taking practice steps as long as we help her balance
- Rolling over consistently
- Playing with the little toys around her Jumperoo
- Using her ab muscles to lift her legs straight up in the air and then slamming them down onto her crib mattress, usually knocking off her monitor camera
- Saying "Mmmmm" and "Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma" when she's frustrated and wants something, although she doesn't seem to correlate me with "Ma-Ma" (I guess that's a good thing, given the context!). Also says "nay-nay-nay-nay."
- Gurgling, razzing, and has just started sticking her tongue out to experiment with different sounds
- Stomping
- Teething—no teeth yet, but is constantly drooling and chewing on her fists and fingers
- Met "Uncle Tori" for the first time
- Swung in her outdoor baby swing and, again, contrary to the picture, seemed to really like it!
She looooves…
- Bitterman—Harper adores Bitterman; she loves to watch him play fetch with Daddy and especially enjoys it when we let her get close enough to "pet" him.
- Her Daddy—she laughs at Jeff more than anyone else and literally lights up whenever he gets home from work.
- Playing games with Mommy—especially this one, which culminates in kisses around the neck:
And listening to Mommy sing/act out "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes":
- Musical toys
- All things shiny—especially the telephone, the remote control, jewelry
- Books—one of her new favorite pastimes
- Standing—most of the time Harper refuses to sit and insists on standing up
- Balding men! She smiles at them whenever they appear on TV, especially Kevin O'Leary from "Shark Tank" and Dr. Phil. She is also a huge fan of Oprah. She smiles at her often.
- Aside from Texas/OU weekend, we alternate weeks.
- Harper is not allowed to wear gear from either team during the Texas/OU game.
- Harper will ONLY wear stuff that represents the winner of the Texas/OU game for the rest of that weekend. May the best team win!
And here are some other super cute pictures from her sixth month!
