Baby Sophia, 5 Months!!

This is the first month where I think “WOW! Five months!!” I think time will start to go faster now!

Sophia now weighs 13 pounds, 11 ounces, and doubled her birth weight a couple weeks ago. It's amazing to watch her perfectly follow the 50 percentile curve for length and head circumference, and the 25th percentile for weight. Guess our baby will be tall, skinny, and smart...?? I never thought I'd have a "small" baby, but my back and arms are grateful!

 Sophia often has her fists in her mouth, babbling away! We could listen to her all day long!

Daddy is still pretty much her favorite person in the world, although she brightens up with any of her family members!

Over the course of this month I packed up all her newborn size clothes…then 3 months…and now she’s wearing all her 3-6 month clothes plus most of the 6 month size. My Mom is still shocked, I think, by a baby who wears the "right" size! She's more like a Bolivian baby in this regard. 

 

Each month that I continue to be able to breastfeed, I am grateful. The first few months were so rough - reaching a proper supply, and realizing that my baby doesn't thrive on a schedule - that I never want to take for granted the ability to provide enough for my baby. I only had one hard week a few back when I took only one drop, two days in a row, of an oil blend containing peppermint. It's true folks, peppermint really does dry up a milk supply!! I was sooo frustrated, and poor Sophia had some screamy days there. I took the last of my fenugreek to get back up to where I was and am staying away from anything mint!!

 Love the hot days when we can see some skin! :)

 

Particularly on the days when she actually gets enough sleep, and doesn’t try to go all day with just one nap, we have a VERY HAPPY BABY!! Every month of her life she has improved on her happy awake times. She brings us so much joy! The boys adore her and say “We like her like this!” Me, too! A couple mornings, she’s even started to coo and sing to herself in bed instead of screaming. Of course, feeding every two hours throughout the night quite positively affects her attitude...if not mine! :)
 

Jake says "Mommy's sunshine...daddy's moonshine?!" He has had some special bonding, ah-hem, time with our baby this past month while mommy tries to sleep

 

The latest greatest is that she began rolling from back to front a few days ago!!! Jake said he’s surprised by how exciting it is for him, and I’d say her brothers are almost more excited than us. They think she’s just the greatest thing ever. (And I think, wait till she’s crawling or walking!!) She now ends up suddenly on her stomach a couple times a day now, much to her chagrin. The boys ask her, “Why do you do it baby, if you don’t like it and it makes you cry?!” Yep, still not a fan of tummy time.

 

 

The boys also think she’s an absolute genius when she plucks her pacifier out of her mouth… And then manages to get it back in again!

 

 

We’ve had all different version of night/sleeping/napping difficulties this past month. I’d say that’s still the number one hardest thing with Sophia, getting her the proper sleep she needs! She really needs an environment as quiet and non-stimulating as possible to go to sleep, and of course to be firmly swaddled, with pacifier in the mouth. Sometimes she has to be super super tired to finally give up and go to sleep, and other times it’s good to catch her early, as all the books advise. She keeps me guessing!!

 

So hard to keep her wiggly little self in the swaddle blanket these days, but naps are very brief if we don't use it. 

 

 

We decided a while back that all of the “tried-and-true” methods for getting a baby to sleep only make it worse for ours: baths, neighborhood walks, car rides, soft music, pacing, rocking... One item that HAS left that list (if we are 110% sure that ALL of her other needs have been met) is “crying it out” (whatever “it” is?). That FINALLY began to be more helpful that counterproductive this month!!! Realizing just how overstimulated and overly tired she gets, I worked hard at this a few days after she turned 4 months. If I catch her at just the right point, she can put herself to sleep in the crib (swaddled and with the pacifier, of course) without screaming herself into a rage! She zones out there and peacefully drifts off to sleep. At worst, we have to go back to her several times to re-insert the pacifier. 

 

Ah. Our lives have CHANGED!!

 

 

This is what we deal with ALL DAY LONG when she decides naps are just for babies!!

 

 

Over the course of this month, we went from every other night being very difficult…to maybe 1 out of 3…to now just one a week! We have happy, peaceful evenings again, yeah!!! Ironically, the nights she goes to bed the easiest are usually the most up-and-down for me, as she wakes hourly needing a little pat, or the pacifier again, or arms to be re-swaddled, or a feed... For all but one of the past ten or so nights, she nurses every 2 - 2 1/2 hours!! I have been more sleep-deprived this last month than the past several.

I guess it's my own fault, because this began after a period of trying to teach her to give up the 3am feeding, because at that point, she was sticking pretty well to a schedule of 6am, 9am, noon, and so on. I thought it would be pretty great to go back to something she's already done consistently, eating around midnight and around 5 or 6am. But after 6 nights, each worse than the one before, we abandoned this mission and she decided to eat all throughout the night, just in case! Sigh. I tell myself that someday I’ll miss this quiet time with her, and how she needs me, and how I can so easily give her what she needs, and that makes the constant tiredness easier. One more month of this though, and I'll be thinking about solids!! Otherwise, my goal is 7 months of exclusive nursing.

 

 

 

This dress from my mom was a little big for her on Valentine's Day, but fits great now!

A few pictures of my bathing beauty! I was experimenting with different settings on Jake's camera.

How she LOVES to splash, splash, splash in her bath tub! I've started to leave the tub inside our shower because she gets the entire bathroom floor and walls so wet! She kicks like crazy. However, as soon as she hits the cool air getting out, she screams as vigorously as she played! Recently, after three times in a row of a rough hour (or more) after a bath, I hesitated to ever bath her again! Sigh. I just have to pick the right time of day, preferably not at night, when she's not already tired. If everything goes just right, some times I can even work in a little lotion or oil massage with background piano music playing - a special time for both of us! 

I've used more and more cloth diapers this past month, as more fit her. Some days I use them all day. I love these that a friend gave me/the Baby Home when she left Bolivia! There are several pretty pastel colors and white. I like using them with Sophia's sun dresses, too.

Modeling the hat friends in jail knitted for my baby:

We love all her HAIR! Not sure if I've ever seen a gringa baby with so much light hair. (And isn't it turning more blonde?!)

Here our hair looks the exact same color, but in certain lighting a bronze/red comes out (definitely from her daddy!)

And speaking of hair, this is her new look these days, YIKES! Her dad loves it, I don't know what to do with it. :)

And one last picture:

Wonderful to have a happy baby at least a couple hours of the day now, and even self-entertaining! :) 

 

 

Exactly.

This bib says it all:

We've got our hands full with this one! :)

Outing to the Woods

Jake had two days off work this week (yay!) due to "Carnaval", so we escaped the noise and pollution of the city for a family trip to the woods in the mountains behind our house! It was also significantly cooler at such a high elevation. (I think Jake said we were approaching 12,000 ft above sea level.)

In Parque Tunari

The Cast of Characters:

Ol' Lucy
(Check out that awful great road!! It's way worse now at the end of rainy season - 10 minutes per kilometer, both going up and coming back down. Jake couldn't say enough wonderful things about it, which kept us all groaning smiling. This is also why lots of the pictures I made while in the car are blurry or not well-centered...) 

Daddy

Mommy

Three Sons

 

Baby Bear

 Our Lunch Site

(Here Jake is encouraging the kids to pick up trash from former visitors)

 

 

Exploring at km 10

  

Daddy taking a turn with baby after such a long screaming session Mommy wanted to throw herself from the car. :)

Yep, we did a bit of this...

...and some napping in the very secure car seat (first time installed in Dad's car)
Notice the blanket keeping her head better positioned, although I also kept my hand on her forehead over the bumpiest portions of the road.

The boys exploring the double waterfall at km 8

 

 

The next day as part of school, I asked the boys to write the story of our little excursion. Joel did a marvelous job and I share his writing here for anyone who reads Spanish:

   

 

 Hopefully this is legible to those who can read it. Love the details he included!

 

And the final page, complete with an illustration: "Gracias, Fin" (Thanks, the end)

 

 

Just Like Daddy, Part II

I rarely do this because before I know it, an hour's gone, but I added some special effects to some of my fav pictures of this week's photo shoot. :)

My old-fashioned baby

 Sweet baby!

 1960s finish

And my personal favorite!!

Pencil sketch
 

Just Like Daddy

A few weeks ago, Jake's parents were trying to convince him that what everyone says is true: Sophia looks just like him! As proof, they mentioned this picture:

If the 4 1/2 month caption is right, this picture would have been made in mid-October, near when Sophia was born a few years later :)

Thanks to my sister Heather's hard work, we have a copy in a special "childhood picture album" that she made for our Bolivia wedding!

The day before Sophia would be 4 1/2 months old, I put her in her first pair of overalls, a gift Jake's mom brought when she visited Sophia just born.

Her oldest brother immediately declared her a "campesinita", ready to go work in the campo (Bolivian countryside)!! Uhhh... Okay!

I was glad I discovered they fit just in time for her to use them! The outfit had appeared too big hanging in the closet.

But before you judge their likeness yourself, a few more pictures from our various sessions throughout the day.

This little set is when baby goes TIMBERRRR.....

Here she goes...

BOOM!!

Brother lends a helping hand

Love this one - she was still laughing at our picture-making antics as she went down!

I had lots of helping hands from Sophia's fan club!

Can just hear her brothers saying, "Don't eat your hands, baby booboo!!"

Looking up at Daddy

The whole gang! 

A hand from Daddy

And a few more:

Drooling!

Hands are often in mouth these days

Sweet baby tootsies



"How much longer, Mommy?!"

And now, the best seven pictures of the day:

The closest match?!

Being feisty! :)

 Studying someone...

In retrospect, noticed that I didn't exactly cover the window behind Sophia, oops. Was too busy concentrating on her! :)

Looks so big here!

 Not exactly smiling, but she's looking up!

We love this baby!!

Book Review! "Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea"

As soon as I saw this title, I knew it would be one of my all-time favorites, a hunch immediately confirmed as I began reading. Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (link is to the Kindle version I downloaded) is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read, and in my opinion, pretty well-written and well-researched—no small feat when dealing with North Korea!

I think that one of the main reasons I love reading and travel are for the chance to learn how others live. This book provided amazing arm-chair travel to a closed country and told the poignant stories of several different families who have now defected to South Korea or China.

Two of many, many things that I learned:

1)      This is the first time I’ve heard any North Korean “talk”. As interested as I’ve always been in the country, it had been one faceless mass of suffering humanity… Until now! The peoples’ ingenuity and resourcefulness in the face of so many challenges made me see them in a whole new light. They are human, like you and me.

2)      My mother always said, “Unless you are content being single, you will not be content married.” I think other situations could be filled in the blanks of this same phrase. I found it intriguing how the very same individuals who had many social or emotional or identity issues in North Korea were followed by the very same problems OUTside North Korea. In the same way, those who were content under the NK regime are still content in their new homes with new challenges.

It was pretty shocking to read to what extent NK's “Great Leaders” set themselves up as god to the people, even being referred to in the Korean word for "god". Although devastating to the people still trapped, it was heartening to read that just enough cracks have appeared in recent years in the “bubble” that is North Korea that the brainwashing tactics aren’t as effective as they were back in the first few decades of this staunchly communist country. Author Barbara Demick states that the people now clearly realize that their government is the source of all their woes, but it's an as yet unspoken understanding.

I could have devoured the whole book in just a few sessions but usually only had 10 or 15 minute snippets while feeding the baby or waiting for her to fall asleep. So glad for my Kindle here in Bolivia! :)