We had a big day here in the Bartlett household!

(1) We started swim lessons with Riley.  Now, because I'm in the pool with her, I couldn't take any pictures of her during her actual lessons, so I just grabbed a quick shot before we left for the pool.  Oh and the only way I can get her to sit still these days is to hand her a toy, which is why there is a monkey in her face. :) 

She LOVED swimming.  Love love loved it.  And she was the star of the show as well.  I wasn't sure what to expect, as I'd never been to this pool before, but it was perfect for her.  It was indoor, and the class was small, and the pool is only open for swim lessons so there were only 10 people in the whole pool while we were there.  And Riley was the only baby that didn't cry when getting in the pool, and didn't cry when water was poured over her head, and basically just didn't cry the whole time, she was happy as can be!  And apparently swimming is tiring work, as she took a 2 hour nap when we got home!

(2) RILEY HAS A TOOTH!!!!  I was pretty sure she had been teething, but then again I thought she was teething months ago, and no teeth had appeared.  But at the end of last week there were a couple nights where she woke up screaming and she was just inconsolable, which doesn't ever happen, and we gave her some tylenol and then she slept through after that.  So then today as I was feeding her lunch, and I saw a little white-ish spot, and sure enough, it's a sharp little tooth poking through!!  I would love to get a picture of it, but there's absolutely no chance of that happening, so you'll have to just trust me.

(3) Riley finally pooped.  Exciting, I know.  She hadn't pooped in almost 4 days, and before that the longest she had ever gone without pooping was a day, so this was a LONG time for her.  We gave her a splash of apple juice last night, and sure enough, at 5 this morning I got a lovely (read: gross and messy) surprise!  No picture to go along with this one either.  You're welcome.

(4) Crawling!  She's really figured it out, and I know she's going to be getting into everything now.  And now that she can crawl, and she moves all over the place, and she sits up, she now topples over and takes more spills.  This morning she smacked her head on a dresser, and did a huge face plant into the carpet, but she didn't cry either time!  She's a tough little cookie.  I took this video yesterday before she really started crawling, and um, please ignore my super annoying voice if you do decide to watch it.  :)

That's about it.  Now the real adventure begins with our little crawler!

This week's words are: Texture, Fog, Button, Beverage, and Seventies.  Here are my interpretations!

(1) Texture

There is nothing sweeter than a sleeping angel baby.  Especially with her little butt in the air.  It's funny I've been trying to get a picture of her sleeping for a while now but I'm always too scared I'm going to wake her up.  But yesterday, she was taking the longest nap, and of course we had somewhere to be, so I WANTED her to wake up, and it was near impossible to wake her!  But at least I got my picture!

(2) Fog

This was a little tough.  It's not actually very foggy where I live.  But we went to visit Mark's parents, and there was fog covering Kapiti Island, and unfortunately we were driving on a windy road with no place to stop, so I took a picture (from the passenger seat) while we were driving.

(3) (Belly) Button

It was hot today, so we lounged around mostly naked. And by "we" I really mean Riley was mostly naked.  And her belly button is just oh so cute!

(4) Beverage

Okay let me explain.  Riley is crawling, BUT she needs the right motivation.  And the only two things she REALLY wanted today were (1) my camera cable and (2) the wine glass.  So, I used those to my advantage, and sure enough, she crawled all the way over to get them.  Of course then I felt guilty because I was not about to let her put either of them in her mouth, which was clearly very disappointing to her!

(5) Seventies.

Mmmmm does editing the photo with a "seventies" action count??  I think it must since I've noticed quite a few people have gone this route. :)

Week 4 collage:

Top to bottom, left to right.
1. Buggy and daddy!  She LOVES to grab his face! 1-22-11
2. Riley's favorite sleeping position (although usually she's wedged in a corner). 1-28-11
3. My big-eyed little munchkin playing with me during the day. 1-24-11
4. Riley turns 7 months old! 1-26-11
5. Me and the little munchkin in her nice winter hat. 1-25-11
6. Riley has her very first taste of yogurt, and she wasn't too sure at first, but ate quite a few bites.  I wouldn't go so far as to say she liked it, but she tolerated it.  1-27-11
7. Riley woke up a little too early from her nap and I needed to finish the laundry, so I put her on her little mat and put the wiggles on for her, and she laid her little head down and watched for about 15 minutes like that!  1-23-11

I'm trying not to stress about solids with Riley.  When she's ready, she will eat.  I'm obviously still trying to get her to eat a variety of things, but when it comes right down to it, you cannot force a baby to eat.  I can give her a variety of foods, and keep offering things she doesn't like in the hopes that she will start to like them, but I cannot, and will not force her to eat anything.  Not at this stage.  We've started with finger foods, and she absolutely LOVED chewing on a cracker.  And we can sneak some purees into her mouth when she's trying to munch on the cracker (we're sneaky like that!).  We gave her some yogurt for the very first time the other day...

Not totally sure about this white stuff...

It sure was messy!  And all she wanted was to hold the carton.  So we thought, sure, why not...

At this point we're trying to make eating fun, which basically means it's super messy.  But hey, at least she ate some of it!  We also gave her a bite of scrambled eggs and baked beans (mashed up), and she actually LIKED it!  Not really the best food for babies I know, but baked beans is a kiwi classic, so she's well and truly a kiwi baby now!

Oh and by the way, this little one is pretty much crawling!!  She's really starting to get the hang of it, today she took five "crawling steps" forward!  It's funny she gets going, and then gets so excited that she lunges forward and flops onto her belly.  But she's pretty much on the move!  And she absolutely LOVES the get from "crawling position" to sitting .  You can tell she's so pleased with herself once she's sitting up, she gets the biggest smile on her face.  It just makes me want to scoop her up and kiss her!  Anyway, looks like some serious baby proofing is going to have to happen in the very near future!

The original:

Here's what I did to it.  I started in Lightroom and did the following. 

• Decreased temperature and tint, increased exposure and recovery slightly.  All these changes were really minor adjustments.  That's it in Lightroom.
• In photoshop: I followed Ashley's steps on making the eyes pop using layer masks, and I lowered the opacity even more to try and make it as subtle as possible.
• That's pretty much it!  I played with white balance a little bit, but ended up not changing it in the end.  I just wanted a simple, clean edit of our bath time fun!
  

And side-by-side to compare.  Not a huge difference, but I like it.

Look who's 7 months old today!

Latest accomplishments include:

• Sitting up very well independently for long long periods of time. 
  
• Can get herself from her tummy into a sitting position without help from me!
  
• SO close to crawling.  She's up on her hands and knees rocking back and forth, but she sort of lunges forward and falls on her face/tummy.  But then she's right back up on her knees.  I think she'll definitely be crawling in the next couple weeks or so.
  
• Scoots backwards all over the place, and turns in circles extremely well.  And she scoots backwards purposefully in order to get things originally out of her reach.
  
• No teeth yet!  Mark thinks he sees some white spot, I still can't tell.
  
• Solids:  we're making progress!!  A week ago, she would only eat ONE thing- pureed banana/pear from a jar.  Literally she wouldn't eat anything else.  But now, she's eaten (and liked): banana/pear, pear/strawberry/guava, strawberry yogurt, banana custard, sweet potato/pumpkin/carrot, apple.  She has also tried steamed pear, apple, and banana (both in slices rather than pureed) and she liked them, but would take HUGE bites and spit them out.  She has NOT liked potatoes, peas, broccoli, mango, rice cereal, beef (pureed and mixed with pumpkin), avocado.  She clearly prefers fruits over all other foods, but I'm just glad she'll eat anything at all! 
  
• Aside from solids, she's still completely breastfed.  I was worried that I was losing my milk supply because she was wanting to nurse all.the.time. when she wouldn't eat solids, so I started taking a herbal supplement "Blessed Thistle," and I think that combined with her eating a tiny bit more solids has been helping and I think my milk supply is doing just fine!
• Sleeping:  She sleeps through the night most nights now (7pm to 5:30-ish am), the other nights she wakes once around 3:30 to feed, and then usually sleeps until 6-6:30.  She also now sleeps with a little silk blanket that she snuggles into before falling asleep.  It's precious.  She mostly sleeps on her tummy, wedged into the corner of her crib as far as she can go!
  
• Naps:  She was taking 3 pretty regular naps around 8, 11:30, and 3:00 (give or take half an hour depending on when she starts her day).  BUT she has recently been doing 2 naps a day around 9am and 2pm.  So some days it's 2, other days it's 3, it all depends on how long her first nap is.
  

What else...

• she's still pooping 4-5 times a day (I know you TOTALLY care about that)
• she does NOT like to take a bottle.  I'm contemplating skipping the bottle stage and going straight to sippy cups, or even regular cups.
• she LOVES "The Wiggles."  I'm not sure if they have that in the US, it's an Australian show (I think) that's really popular in New Zealand.  We don't really let her watch a ton of TV, but if I need to get something done and she won't occupy herself, then I can put on The Wiggles and she LOVES it!  It's basically lots of songs, nursery rhymes, dancing, bright colors, etc. 
  

You might be wondering why you don't see as many of our usual monthly "chair" photos with her elephant.  Well, long story short, I had my 50mm lens on my camera, which means I had to stand semi-far away from the chair (as in, not within arm's reach) in order to take a picture, and Riley literally kept catapulting herself off the chair (or at least she would have if I was not sitting right in front of her).  So for the sake of her safety, we abandoned that idea until Mark could get home to play "catch the baby in case she dives off the chair."  But we did manage to get at least one good one, so here you are:

And finally, we'll end with this...

First of all, I didn't get around to finishing my photos for Scavenger Hunt Sunday this week, which I am pretty bummed about, which means I am definitely doing it next week... But I did take a picture for this week's "Shoot and edit" challenge, which really involves minimal work because it's just a shot straight out of the camera! In fact, every shot in this post is straight out of the camera, come to think of it.  Anyway, this week's theme was something that says, "Goodnight" to you.  This is part of our bedtime routine every single night.  Bath time with daddy, sucking on the finger puppet.

In non-related news, we had Riley's 7 month check today.  She's getting bigger and taller, and hitting all her milestones on time, so all is good in that aspect.  But the nurse we saw was not so pleased about her solid-eating habits.  Which confuses me a little bit, I guess different people have different opinions/idea about solid food.  See, I thought at this point, breast milk was still the most important source of nutrition for Riley, and food was really just for practice, so they can learn how to chew and swallow and they get exposed to new tastes and textures.  Well, she told me that (1) Riley NEEDS to be eating 3 meals of solid food a day (2) She should only be getting 4 milk feeds a day (3) I should NEVER nurse her in the night (4) if she won't eat solids, and she's hungry, I am NOT to nurse her, because eventually if she's hungry, she'll eat the solid foods.  Oh yeah AND, she told me that if Riley is locking her lips and not wanting to eat, then she is being "naughty."  Hmmm.  I know she's supposed to be the expert here, but I'm not buying it.  Any of it.  I know Riley is a little behind the curve in her solid eating abilities, but I'm not really concerned, some babies just are not that interested in solids for a little while longer.  Riley's gaining weight well, my only concern is that she's not getting enough iron, but I'm working on ways to get iron in her diet.  So remember what I said yesterday about advice?  I think even the most "knowledgeable" people give bad advice. 

Today I had little Taylor here again, and he and Riley are pretty funny together.  This little rattle toy was a hot item today.  Look at Taylor giving Riley the stare down:

He was just waiting for the right opportunity...

Yup.  These two are precious.

Anyway, Riley is 7 MONTHS tomorrow, so check back for her 7 month-day post!

When you have children (or even when you're pregnant) people LOVE to give you parenting advice.  Some of it is really helpful, some completely useless, and some is just flat out rude.  But it's just something about having kids that makes people feel the need to share what they think you should do with YOUR children (even if they don't have children of their own. Weird).  And so, I have some parenting advice for YOU.  You'll thank me later, trust me.  Here's my top ten.

1. After changing a dis-gus-ting dirty diaper in your car because there were no suitable surfaces for changing baby, do NOT leave said diaper in car for 2 days.  Don't do it.
2. Never ever ever put a super-absorbent disposable breast pad in the washing machine.  Ever seen those little crystal things that are in disposable diapers?  They're in breast pads too.  And now they're all over all my (and Mark, and Riley's) should-be-clean clothes.
3. ALWAYS bring extra diapers, wipes, and baby clothes with you wherever you go, even if it's "just for a second."  Because you know that the one time you don't, you are guaranteed a poopsplosion.  That is a word, I promise.
4. See if your baby will actually eat your homemade baby food before you get all crazy and make a month's supply that takes over your freezer.
5. Don't decide that you'll just carry your wiggly, curious almost 7 month old while shopping rather than bringing the stroller or sling, even if you think you need "just one thing." Odds are, you need more than one, which means you need multiple hands, and baby will want to lunge and grab at everything.  But if you get lucky the salesperson will feel bad for you and carry your stuff, pack it in your bag for you, AND try to distract your baby long enough so you can pay for your merchandise.  Thank goodness for patient salespeople.
6. If you have one of those window shade things in your car, the kind that hooks in the actual window, do NOT forget it's there and try and crack THAT particular window to give your baby some fresh air, because it will make a LOUD sound and scare the crap out of said baby, and she will SCREAM until you can get her out of the seat and comfort her.
7. You can never have too many burp cloths.  No seriously.
8. This one is not parenting advice, this one is for the general public.  Be kind to mamas on planes with babies.  Or children in general.  Because (1) that mom is probably going to do everything in her power to keep her kid(s) happy (what mom wants be THAT mom with a screaming baby on a plane?) (2) She is probably totally stressed already and (3) giving dirty looks and making rude comments will not actually make the baby any quieter.  Just so you know for next time.
9. Don't spend a fortune on baby toys.  Odds are, your baby's favorite "toys" will be: paper, cups, watches, water bottles, shoes, or pretty much anything else NOT designed to be a baby toy.
10. When it comes down to it, you do whatever's right for your baby, trust your instincts, and forget about all the advice you may have received (unless you thought that advice was good, and then feel free to follow it).

Hopefully my advice didn't bore you too much!  Sometimes I think Riley thinks I'm boring...  yawn.

Totally forgot to put a picture of myself in there this week, whoops!  Oh well, there's always next week.

Top to bottom, left to right:
1. Riley chomping in her favorite bath toys with no hands. (1/20)
2. Riley hanging out in her favorite place to be: on daddy's shoulders (1/15)
3. Riley is SO CLOSE to crawling.  So close. (1/19)
4. My first day of "work" with two babies! (1/18)
5. My handsome husband (he was hard at work here and I was all up in his face with a camera). (1/17)
6. Riley practicing her "crawling" with a pacifier that takes over her face! (1/21)
7. Little peanut wearing her Hawaiian dress that Nana and Granddad bought her in Hawaii! (1/16)

A couple photo challenges!  OK we got these little finger puppets for Riley to play with in the bath, and she is IN LOVE with them.  And the best part, apparently, is she can keep them in her mouth with NO hands!  And she sucks all the bath water out of them because they are like little sponges.  She could sit in the bath happily forever just sucking on that little turtle.  And I gave this photo a little "autumn tint," and at first I wasn't sure if I liked it, but now I think I do.

And then we have shoot and edit part 2:  Here's the SOOC shot again.

And my edited version.

I'm going to be honest, I don't love the edit.  I just couldn't get it to look like I wanted.  But here they are side-by-side so you can compare.

I also kind of liked a simple black and white version....

I followed some of Ashley's steps BUT then I wasn't getting the look I wanted, so I kept trying different things and I just could not keep track of all the things I did! I'll write it down next time.

And I leave you with Riley's seriously-contemplating-the-world face.  Mwah!