So yesterday was pretty crappy as far as electricity was concerned. The power outage was scheduled for 9a-2:30p. It went out between 9a and 9:30a, in the middle of Allie’s first nap, so I had to go by hearing to estimate when she was awake. Sometimes Allie wakes and plays on her own for awhile before making a noise, so it’s possible she was down less than I’d thought, but the first time I heard her for her first 2 naps was at about the 1 hour point. The electricity didn’t get restored until 5:20p or so, and I was in near panic at that point, freaked out that all of my frozen breastmilk would thaw and go bad. I was already making plans to buy formula for the months it would take me to pump out enough for Allie to drink during the day again. Thankfully, I didn’t open the freezer or fridge, and both Christi (flip flop girl) and college roommie Diana texted me that as long as the milk is partially frozen, i.e. it has some ice crystals in it, it can be refrozen. Mr. W had to open the freezer for me to check after he got home, because I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Turned out all our popsicles were fine and the bags of milk were still rock solid. Thank you, advanced fridge!!

Also yesterday, Allie had her 6-month checkup. Her regular pediatrician ended up being unavailable of her original appointment, so a medical staffmember called me to reschedule. We ended up rescheduling to yesterday, 2 days before her 6-month birthday. I asked if timing issues would exist for anything Allie needed to get done that had to wait until after 6 months, and the staff person said no. Well, turned out she was wrong. Allie has 6-month vaccinations that she couldn’t get early. The doctor we saw wasn’t her regular pediatrician anyway, so I didn’t know why I had to reschedule if I could’ve just seen someone else, but it was the doctor who saw Allie when she was sick, and we liked her. This doctor explained that the reason the vaccinations have to wait until after 6 months is because some schools are so stringent about the timing of periodic vaccinations that if they see she didn’t have the required shots within her 6 month time period, they’d make her take the series of vaccinations all over again. So we have to take Allie after work next Tuesday for vaccinations alone. I hope she doesn’t have a reaction like she did last time. 🙁 Anyway, here are Allie’s lovely 6-month stats:
* height: 28 inches
* weight: 16 lbs 9.8 ounces
I had expected to get a printout of her numbers, but turned out it wasn’t among the information in my paperwork. I don’t remember her head circumference, but remember seeing it went a little higher on the percentile curve. “That’s good,” the doctor said, “It means her brain is still actively growing.” I don’t remember what percentile her weight is, but it’s probably still within the 40%s. Her height was something the doctor was interested in showing me on the percentile curve on the computer. “Look at this,” she said, laughing, pointing at the “x” waaay above the lines drawn on the graph. She’s still above 99th percentile on height.
“She’s going to outgrow me by junior high, isn’t she?”
“Yes. But somewhere between ages 13 and 16, even though she’s taller than you are, she will still know that you are mom and you are the boss.” That’s a big statement. It says that 1.) Allie will have outgrown me between ages 13 and 16; 2.) Allie will think she’s the boss after age 16. I pouted. I was also advised that I may want to lower Allie’s crib mattress, because she’s so strong that she only needs to learn how to pull herself up and she’ll be out of the crib. I pouted again. I already have a hard time lowering her into her crib as it is, cuz I wasn’t blessed with Allie’s gift of height.

The pediatrician was surprised we haven’t started Allie on solids, yet. She said between 4 and 6 months would’ve been fine, but at this point, “Start now!” So Mr. W came home a little early, Allie was freshly up from her late-afternoon nap and just at her expected next meal at 4:30p, so it was at the advised time of “hungry but well-rested so not cranky.” We mixed 1 teaspoon of iron-fortified organic rice cereal (flakey and powdery! it pretty much melted away) with 3 teaspoons of breast milk. It was good use of about an ounce of breast milk that Jayne had left over from her measured feedings last Friday, sitting in a vial in the fridge, quickly becoming less cold thanks to the longer-than-anticipated power outage. The result was pretty thin consistency, which I was told it’s supposed to be to start Allie off in learning to take food from a spoon. Boy, those baby spoons don’t hold much at all, which made the whole ordeal pretty drippy. Allie did really well, though! She first kept trying to reach for the spoon with her hand, so we had to hold her hand down. The moment it was near her mouth she opened her lips and accepted the tip of the spoon. I was told to let her sucking reflex suck the liquid off the spoon, and it didn’t quite work that way. She was dribbly for awhile until she realized she recognizes the flavor of the milk. After that, she would lunge for the spoon with her mouth wide open. It was messy down her chin, but nowhere near as messy as I’d expected it to be. We put a giant food bib on her that may have gotten 2-3 drips on it. Allie was apparently ready for solids, because she swallowed just fine, no tongue-thrust reflex. This may explain her recent favorite thing to do with her mouth, which is open and close it repeatedly like she’s chewing.
Mr. W thought it’d be a good time to introduce a sippy cup to her, too, so we put the remainder of the breast milk from the vial into a sippy cup and gave that to her. Her mouth went right onto the sipper part, but she didn’t close her lips around it to suck. She just chewed on it like she does with her teething toys. Since it was the awesome Playtex sippy that doesn’t drip or leak, she got nothing out of it and probably doesn’t even know there’s food on the other side of the sipper. Mr. W finally unscrewed and removed the sippy lid and fed the rest to her like a cup. She took that better. She’d been watching us drink from cups and had tried to emulate us anytime she got her hands on a cup. Good thing I only bought one two-pack of the sippy cups, she may skip that stage. We got Allie’s food experiences on 8 minutes of video, which is apparently 2 gigabytes. Yikes. Anyway, I nursed Allie immediately after that food experience. I guess we’re supposed to introduce her to solids before she fills up by nursing so that she’d be hungry enough to be interested in trying the food the new way, and THEN give her the usual breastfeeding session. I was a little pensive she’d reject the breast, now that she’s found she can gulp milk faster through a cup, and she did seem a little confused at first on the breast, but a few seconds later and she was nursing as usual. We’ll be feeding her rice cereal in the evening for about a week, and then slowly introducing other solids to her later on. I’m excited!

** Addendum: Her head circumference is 44 cm. I guess it was on one of the papers, but I didn’t know at the time what “HD” referred to (I guess it’s “head diameter?”).