Bronchitis

It’s been almost a month since I updated The Birdie Diaries! A lot has happened in a month. Montgomery got a cough that escalated into bronchitis. We had a scary trip to the doctor when her breathing got very labored and fast. We had to sit in the doctor’s office for several hours doing breathing treatments to get it back to normal and we had to continue to breathing treatments at home. Needless to say, a 7-month-old does NOT take kindly to having a mask strapped to her face so that the vapors from the nebulizer medicine would get sucked into her lungs. It took two of us to do each treatment since she fights and screams the whole time. She’s all well now and back to her happy smiling self!

She’s definitely inquisitive and determined. When she sees something she hasn’t seen before she investigates it immediately. She doesn’t seem to have much fear. She jumps a little at the sound of the hair dryer or the vacuum cleaner, but that’s about it. She’s still in love with all our dogs and she’s definitely a Daddy’s girl. She recognizes the sound of Scott's spurs walking up the porch steps before he comes in the house and she always turns and squeals in anticipation of him coming in the door. She still chaters endlessly but she's not saying any actual words yet but she does know ba-ba for bottle!

We’re still working on putting her in her crib to sleep at night. We’re getting better about it. We put her down at night in her crib and that usually lasts until about 1 or 2am and then I bring her down to the bed. I know I’m creating my own monster in this bad habit but we’re working on it!

Here are some photos!

Crawling Now!

It’s been too long since I posted a new blog entry! Scott and I went to Italy – he was asked to put on a cutting horse clinic there. It was ton of fun – we spent a week in the Milan area and got to spend two days in Venice as well. Montgomery stayed with her grandparents and she was remarkably well-behaved! It was so hard to leave her – we missed her soooooo much, but we knew she was in good hands and we got daily reports on her activities. I’ll admit it was nice to sleep though an entire night!!!

The latest milestones include another tooth and she’s now officially crawling! She doesn’t do a traditional crawl on her knees though – she does a “crab” crawl where she tucks her little feet up under her and leans on one knee and pushes off her feet. She’s very quick now! She can scoot across the room very well. When she stops, she carefully pulls her feet up under her and rolls back on her butt so she’s sitting up. She’s very proud of herself when she finds something to pull herself up to so she’s on her feet. We’ve started babyproofing that house as much as possible. We’re trying to contain her mostly to the living room kitchen area, and hopefully as soon as we get some baby fencing done, she can spend more time in her room.

She’s already outgrown lots of toys – her baby swing, her bouncy seat, her cradle, etc. I spent an hour on Sunday lowering the mattress in her crib to the bottom level so that when she naps and wakes up in there, she won’t pull herself up and fall over the edge! Scott and I are still letting her sleep in the bed at night. I’m well aware that we are creating a monster by getting into that habit – but considering that she slept in her playpen/crib when she spent a week with her grandparents, I don’t think SHE is the one who cares where she sleeps. It’s all ME!! I just love having her curled up next to me at night and since she’s still taking a bottle in the middle of the night, it’s a convenience thing too. I know one of these days I am going to have to go cold turkey and put her in her crib at night and not get up when she cries for a bottle – but I am dreading it!!!!

Here are some photos. I will try to get a video of the crab crawl!

Our First Tooth!

We’ve had a few more milestones! Montgomery has her first tooth! After many weeks of excessive drooling and intense teething that would put a new puppy to shame, we finally have a tooth making an appearance on the bottom front of her mouth. If you stick your finger in there to feel it, she chomps down on your finger and makes an adorable angry-looking chewing face. Right now, the tooth is so small that it doesn’t hurt when she bites you, but soon I am sure it wont feel so “cute”!

Montgomery is also “dangerously” close to crawling. She can now get her body up on her hands and knees, and she can even press up on her hands and feet (no knees) but from there she’s not quite sure what to do. She rocks back and forth, and sometimes puts her head on the ground to brace herself, as if her head is a 5th appendage. If she were in yoga class it might be considered a pretty good “downward dog”. Yesterday I watched her as she managed to get up on her hands and knees and then sit there for a bit while she contemplated her next move. She then managed to pull her knees up under her. From there, she leaned over to her left and put her weight mostly on her left leg and her knee – somewhat sitting on that leg. She extended her right leg and gave a good solid push and she propelled herself forward about two inches! Hallelujah! We’re crawling! The whole process took about five minutes and she was completely exhausted, so she gave up after that. We’ll try again tomorrow. She can also push herself in reverse with her arms, which means we can’t leave her on the bed surrounded by pillows anymore! She can push enough to push the pillows off the bed.

On Saturday we went to the Houston Arboretum Halloween festival, which was lots of fun. We walked around for a little bit and checked out all the cool events. I will post photos from that soon. On Sunday morning we went to the grocery store and she sat in the front of the cart for the first time (as opposed to being in her car seat placed on top of the front of the cart). The grocery store is apparently filled with many exciting sights and sounds if you are six months old!!

Our First Temper Tantrum

I forgot to post the photos from Montgomery’s 5-month birthday so here they are, even though she is turning six months old this week!

I am not 100% sure, but I think Montgomery had her first temper tantrum on Saturday night. Let me preface the story by saying she’s usually a pretty easy-going happy baby and she really only cries when she’s hungry or if something is hurting her. She’s also put herself on somewhat of her own routine: morning nap around 10am, afternoon nap around 2pm, bedtime between 8pm and 9pm, nighttime bottles at around 11:30pm, bottle #2 at around 3:30am, and wakes around 6:30am or 7am.

On Saturday night I was getting her ready for bed at about 8pm. The typical routine usually entails a bath (although we didn’t give her one that night), turn down the lights in the living room, turn off TV, relax in the glider and listen to a compilation of soothing songs by Sarah McLachlan. There is usually a bedtime bottle of milk too. This combination of things usually triggers sleep mode in this child within five minutes, but on Saturday night, she continued to cry and even SCREAM loudly, despite the routine and my usual efforts. I thought that something must be wrong! Is she hungry again? Is she hurting? Teething? Have gas pains? Or heaven forbid – something worse? She had just taken a full bottle so she refused any more. She burped just fine so gas didn’t seem to be the problem. I gave her a little bit of Tylenol in case it was her teething. There was no fever so I didn’t think she was sick in any other way. Still no change.

Anyway, I got out of the glider and tried gently bouncing her lightly in my arms or over my shoulder in the dim lights of the living room, trying to sing to her calmly over her piercing screams. After 10 minutes of that and my arms and legs exhausted, I tried getting back in the glider. No improvement – still crying and screaming. So I said what the heck, I’ll just tire her out by keeping her up so I kicked on the lights and the TV and sat back down in the glider, but 15 minutes later she’s still crying and squirming. So we played with some toys – I put her in her play pen with her toys but she immediately started crying. She’s bored with the play pen toys. I put her in her bouncy jumperoo. Same reaction. Not liking it. So we went outside – crying stops! Nighttime is fascinating – dogs are barking, horses are moving slowly in the pasture, strange sounds are coming out of the trees. She is mesmerized and the crying has stopped. Well, only for about five minutes and she got bored with that. Back inside. No signs of sleepiness at all.

OK, maybe a bath will help. I pull out the sink bath tub and start running the water while holder her on my hip. The sound of the running water quickly turns her head and the crying stops. She wants to play in the water. I pull her jammies off and in the tub she goes. She loves this – wants to hold the water sprayer and wants to lick the water. I let her play in the water for awhile since she’s not crying. I pull her out and dry her off. No crying but I’m dreading putting her jammies back on because she hates putting her arms through sleeves and this might trigger crying again. I manage to get the jammies on with minimal resistance. It’s almost 11pm at this point and I think her battery is losing steam. She starts to cry but now it’s a more labored cry – slow and intentional. I take advantage of the lack of resistance and kicky feet I am feeling from her and grab a bottle of formula. I shut off the TV and the lights and get back into the glider with bottle, which she takes eagerly and falls asleep.

My assessment the next day – she stopped crying whenever we did something she liked… This child has learned how to cry to get what she wants! OK call me naïve for not figuring that out that night (ok, I kinda knew in the back of my head but didn’t want to think she was already growing up that fast!). That night, Montgomery was fine when we were doing something SHE wanted to do – like go outside or take a bath. So, crying used to be limited to only hunger and pain, but those days are over. The game has changed to now include using crying to manipulate her parents! This is a new whole new chapter….

We also had our first attempts at eating baby food – which didn’t work out very well! I will write more about that later and post those photos.

In the Round Pen

Scott wanted to take Montgomery out with him this morning to sort cattle. I cautiously agreed - assuming as her Daddy he would be very careful and never put her in danger! Here are some adorable photos I took - she loves being out there with him and he definitely wore her out!

Waller County Fair

The Waller County Fair started on Saturday so I took Montgomery to watch Scott and his team in the ranch rodeo event. As you can see below - she has discovered her tongue! Now every smile includes sticking out her tongue.

Scott's team ended up 5th out of 12 teams, which wasn't bad considering they got the team together the night before and of course, never practiced!

5-Month Birthday, Hurricane Ike!

I haven't posted anything in awhile! Last Monday was Montgomery's 5-month birthday! She can sit up on her own somewhat but still falls over so she still needs someone to sit with her while she's sitting up.

We fared better than most in Hurricane Ike. Lost some trees but never lost power - thank goodness. Houston is still a mess with over 1 million people still without power. Sorry for the short blog entry but too much going on here at the moment to write much!

Here are some photos from the last week or so.

News from Camp Ferguson

It has been so long since I updated Birdie’s blog! We have reached some new milestones and I’ve had some “mommy” moments.

For starters, Montgomery can roll over!! OK, it takes a LOT OF effort on her part and she can only roll one way, but it’s a start. Once she gets to her tummy, she gets upset though because she pushes her strong little legs so hard to try to crawl but she doesn’t get anywhere. Her arms and upper body aren’t strong enough yet to propel her anywhere. It’s so sad because she tries sooooo hard but nothing happens and she starts to whimper and cry. She is so ready to be mobile. Yikes!

She’s gotten to where she will sit in her “Bumbo” for 10 – 15 minutes at a time. A Bumbo is like a booster seat that is designed to help babies sit up. Some people say it delays the sitting up process because it helps them, but from what I have seen, I think it helps to strengthen her stomach muscles because she still has to balance herself in it. It doesn’t completely support her, it just gives her some assistance to not fall over.

Mo (my Mom) came out to the ranch on Sunday and helped go through all of Montgomery’s mountains of clothes and get them sorted into piles: 1.) can wear now 2.) will wear as soon as it gets cooler 3.) winter clothes 4.) clothes for next Spring and Summer 5.) clothes that were not the right size for the season 6.) clothes she has already outgrown.

We inherited bunches of clothes from my niece – Piper – who will turn two in November, but she was a winter baby and Montgomery was a spring baby so some of the clothes won’t work for her size and the season. I got some under-the-bed storage boxes and put away everything that she can’t wear until next year so it felt good to get organized and cleaned out.

There are two “mommy” issues I am starting to address. First, my baby book says that Montgomery will now at her age start to recognize her name. Considering I have been calling her Birdie about 90% of the time, I am guessing she thinks her name is Birdie! I’ve been trying to change that and call her Montgomery as much as I can, but I admit, it’s not an easy name to say and it doesn’t just roll off the tongue. Birdie is certainly much easier! Second, I need to start breaking myself of the habit of pulling her into the bed with me at night after she wakes up for her nighttime bottles. I admit it’s a combination of convenience – to not have to get out of bed when she wakes up for her bottle - combined with the fact that I love to have her snuggled up next to me at night. I know the longer I wait to get her sleeping in her own bed, the harder it will be to break this habit. But, in my own defense, I do start her out sleeping in her cradle at night. It’s not until she wakes up for her 2nd bottle that I usually pull her into bed. And the fact that she has reflux is definitely a factor. Reflux babies tend to take a lot longer to sleep through the night and she still can’t sleep lying completely flat. She has to have some degree of elevation so I have her cradle mattress propped up on one end with a pillow under it, and when she’s in the bed with me, her head is on a pillow or up on my shoulder. Anyway, I know this is a bad habit but I am working on it!

Here are some new photos!!

Scott giving Birdie a pedicure. I believe she's asleep during this process!



In the process of cleaning out her closet, we did play dress up!

Weighing in at 13 pounds 8 ounces!

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in awhile!

Birdie went to see Dr. Cook last week for her 4-month “wellness” check-up. She weighed in at 13 pounds 8 ounces, which put her at 50 percentile in her weight. She was 25 inches long and I can’t remember her head measurement but it fell in the 90 percentile. So I guess that means she is long, skinny and has a big noggin! Sounds like there is definitely some Payne in her.

Poor Birdie had to get four more shots for her vaccinations. They nurse gave them to her super-fast – it was over in about 10 seconds. Of course there is a delayed reaction to the pain since Birdie didn’t know what was going on. Her face turned as red as a tomato, her bottom lip rolled out as far as it could go, her sweet little face got all squished up, her eyes closed and her mouth opened to scream…but nothing came out! OK, I know at this point I am not supposed to laugh at my child’s pain, but the look of indignation on her face was priceless – as if she was wondering what the heck she had done to deserve that! As if she was saying “MOM! How could you let this happen to me!?!” A few seconds later the sound caught up with the face and she screamed at the top of her lungs for about 15 seconds. After that, she stopped and acted like nothing ever happened.

On the home front, Montgomery has now taken to NOT wanting to sit down for extended periods of time. She no longer wants to rock in the glider or sit on the sofa. She’ll tolerate the bouncy chair or the swing for short intervals – a bit longer if she has “her bunny” with her. She wants to be upright and moving at all time – which means “Get on your feet Mom and walk me around”! As you can imagine, this is exhausting to some extent. At least she’s started to take a regular nap around 2:00pm for at least an hour or more. I’m trying to get her to go to bed earlier around 9pm rather than 10:30pm. Our bedtime routine consists of turning off all the lights except one dim one in the living room, then turning on Sarah McLachlan’s Afterglow CD and singing along while walking and rocking her in my arms. On the whole, this works pretty well. She usually falls asleep or is on the way out by the third song. But all my baby books say that I need to stop this soon and start letting her fall asleep on her own without my help. So I’m going to start to wean her off this process around month five.

Birdie has developed a growing interest in the dogs – particular Tank and Max since they tend to be around the house more. Our Border Collies – Abby and Willis – haven’t shown any interested in her but that might change once she starts to walk. I think they figure they can’t “herd” her anywhere so what’s the point? Max (a brindle Catahoula) just licks her face – which makes her giggle and laugh. She loves to grab Tank’s thick white fur (he’s a Great Pyrenees) – she’s even given it a few good tugs and he doesn’t mind at all.

Here are some photos. She’ll probably kill me later for posting half naked pics of her on the Internet!

Four Months Old!

Birdie is already too-cool-for-school. Her 4-month birthday was on Friday. Thank you to our neighbor Betty for the gift of the cool shades.


Birdie has a solid grip on Daddy's hair!

Our First Rain Storm!

Birdie was distracting me a bit too much from my work yesterday afternoon, so Scott took her out to do some “ranch work”. He loaded her up in the Baby Bjorn and hopped on the Gator to go drive across the creek to our property to look for two sick cows to see how they were doing. He said she didn’t mind the ride at all – the wind in her face or going through some of the brush. She just sat there looking at everything! They got caught in a downpour on the way back to the house. He said she got a little fussy when it first started raining on them but then perhaps she realized it was just water and she stopped and didn’t seem to mind at all that they were both getting soaked! I managed to snap some photos of them when they came in the
house.

Bottle Holding!

Birdie can now hold her bottle on her own! Granted it's only for about 15 seconds but it's a start!

Our First Road Trip!

You never realize how much stuff a tiny little person needs until you pack up the car for a short road trip. Formula, diapers, bottles, wipes, clothes, travel bed, blankets, pacifiers, medicine, stroller, playmat...you get the idea!

I tried to time it so that we would get on the road right after she ate so she would fall asleep. She had a bottle, fell asleep and off we went. I loaded up the car and Birdie and I headed to Fort Worth this morning to see Scott at the NCHA Derby. We got to about Navasota (which is only 15 minutes from home) before she had a meltdown. I had to pull over and give her a bottle again! And then had to pull her out of her car seat and burp her and let her get a little settled before we got back on the road. She slept the rest of the trip.

We arrived safely a few hours later. Birdie was sooooo happy to see her Daddy (and her Daddy was equally happy to see her too!). Here are two photos from the hotel room today.

16 Weeks and Counting...

Yesterday was Birdie’s 16-week birthday, which if you go by the notion that 4 weeks = 1 month, then that would be her 4-month birthday. But, if you do that, you get all out of whack in relation to her ‘monthly birthday”, so I am going to start going by the 8th of every month as her monthly birthday. So on August 8th we will celebrate her 4-month birthday! I’m big on celebrating birthdays – or milestones of any kind. Life is too short not to celebrate everything – big and small. Growing up, my parents always made a big deal out of our birthdays and we loved it. I want Birdie to have all the great birthday party memories that I have from growing up!

We’ve hit a few milestones in the last weeks. She’s outgrown a bunch of her 0 – 3 month clothes so now we’re getting to move into some of the cuter outfits – yea! She’s gotten pretty good at getting her thumb and fingers in her mouth (and keeping them there) for sucking on them. She can grab her feet and pull them up to her mouth (but she can’t quite get those tiny toes IN her mouth, but boy does she try!). She can totally hold her head up on her own now and when she lies on her tummy she can hold her head up and look around.

We got out the bouncer thingy that you hang in the doorway and let her jump by pushing off the ground, but our door frames are weird and it didn’t fit right so Scott nailed some pegs into the door frame so we could hang it. She really likes it for about 10 minutes and then she’s had enough and wants OUT. So I got her a floor-based “jumperoo” that she can stand/sit in and bounce herself. She really likes it… for about 15 minutes before she wants out! She got to pet a kitty for the first time at my Mom’s house (she’s been petting dogs for weeks now since we have a heard of them at our house). Sophie (the cat) didn’t seem to mind until Birdie got more of a “grip” on the fur rather than an “pet” of it. Sophie politely moved just out of reach of the child!

I will try to post more photos soon.

Graduating to "Real" Clothes

Birdie has finally outgrown some of the basic onsies and can now fit into some of her cute outfits! She has also become attached to a little blue stuffed animal bunny. She slobers on her bunny all day and constantly tries to shove its face, ears, hands and feet in her mouth. Poor bunny has been in the washing machine several times already.

Here is an adorable green searsucker jumper.


Montgomery and her cousin Mackenzie catching up on some cartoons.

Montgomery really likes the new bouncy chair her grandmother has at her house!

What To Do About the Hair

One advantage of having a baby who was born with lots of hair is being able to play with it in all sorts of silly ways. Here are a few photos of her experimental hair styles.


This is our 50s greaser hair do, or perhaps West Side Story?


This is our mad scientist or Einstein hair do.


This was our attemtp at a punk rock do (supposed to be a mohawk).


This looks like someone tried to gift wrap her.